I joined the Department of Social Policy and Criminology in September 2019 as a Lecturer in Criminology, before which I'd been a Lecturer in Sociology since the start of 2018. I started working for The Open University as an Associate Lecturer in 2009, and I am still an AL, currently tutoring the Criminology modules DD105 and DD212. Before/alongside my work for The Open University I worked in a variety of posts as a researcher and lecturer at the University of Bristol, Cardiff University, the University of Derby and Nottingham Trent University.
PhD Sociology (University of Bristol)
MA Sociology with special reference to Qualitative Research (Goldsmiths College)
BA Arts and Humanities (Art History) (Hons) (Open University)
BSc Sociology (Hons) (University of Bristol)
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
My current research centres on Critical Animal Studies and the sociology of human-nonhuman animal relations, especially childhood socialization, cultural reproduction and intersections between intra-human and inter-species relations (for example, affinities and entanglements between sexism, racism and speciesism). My first book: Our Children and Other Animals: The Cultural Construction of Human-Animal Relations in Childhood, co-written with Dr Kate Stewart, explores how children are socialized into accepting and reproducing the human domination of other animals.
I am also interested in the largely untapped potential of ‘classical’ and contemporary sociological theory to enhance our understanding of the human domination of other animals, and thereby to equip social movements for other animals with effective tactics for challenging that domination. I have also researched and written on the cultural representation of vegans and veganism, the genealogy of modern veganism and the sociology of unemployment.
Almiron, N., Cole, M. & Freeman, C.P. (eds) (2016) Critical Animal and Media Studies: Communication for Nonhuman Animal Advocacy, Routledge.
Cole, M. & Stewart, K. (2014) Our Children and Other Animals: The Cultural Construction of Human-Animal Interaction in Childhood, Ashgate
Almiron, N., Cole, M. and Freeman, C.P. (2018) 'Critical Animal and Media Studies: Expanding the Understanding of Oppression in Communication Research', European Journal of Communication, https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323118763937
Cole, M. & Stewart, K. (2018) ‘Speciesism Party: an intersectional vegan critique of Sausage Party’, special issue of International Studies in Literature & Environment, isx075, https://doi.org/10.1093/isle/isx075
Cole, M. & Stewart, K. (2017) ‘A new life in the countryside awaits’: interactive lessons in the rural utopia in ‘farming’ simulation games’, Discourse 38 (3): 402-415.
Cole, M. & Morgan, K. (2013) ‘Engineering Freedom? A Critique of Biotechnological Routes to ‘Animal Liberation’’, Configurations 21 (2): 201-229.
Cole, M. & Morgan, K. (2011) ‘Veganism contra speciesism: Beyond debate’, The Brock Review, 12 (1): 144-163 (Special Issue: Animals in Human Societies)
Cole, M. & Morgan, K. (2011) ‘Vegaphobia: Derogatory discourses of veganism and the reproduction of speciesism in UK national newspapers’, British Journal of Sociology, 61 (1): 134-153
Cole, M. (2011) ‘From ‘animal machines’ to ‘happy meat’? Foucault’s ideas of disciplinary and pastoral power applied to ‘animal-centred’ welfare discourse’, Animals 1 (1): 83-101
Stewart, K. & Cole, M. (2009) ‘The conceptual separation of food and animals in childhood’, Food, Culture and Society, 12 (4): 457-476
Cole, M., Miele, M., Hines, P., Zokaei, K., Evans, B. & Beale, J. (2009) ‘Animal foods and climate change: Shadowing eating practices’, International Journal of Consumer Studies, 33 (2): 162-167
Cole, M. (2008) ‘Asceticism and hedonism in research discourses of veg*anism’, British Food Journal, 110 (7): 706-716
Cole, M. (2008) ‘Sociology contra Thatcherism? The contest for the meaning of unemployment in UK policy debates’, Work, Employment and Society, 22 (1): 27-43
Cole, M. (2007) ‘From employment exchange to Jobcentre Plus: The changing institutional context of unemployment’, History of the Human Sciences, 20 (4): 129-146
Cole, M. (2007) ‘Rethinking unemployment: a challenge to the legacy of Jahoda et al.’, Sociology, 41 (6): 1133-1149
Cole, M. & Stewart, K. (2018) ‘‘A new life in the countryside awaits’: interactive lessons in the rural utopia in ‘farming’ simulation games’, in Pini, B., Mayes, R. & Castro, L.R. (eds) Rurality and Education, Routledge.
Cole, M. & Stewart, K. (2018) ‘Socializing superiority: the cultural denaturalization of children's relations with animals’, in Cutter-McKenzie, A., Malone, K. & Hacking, E.B. (eds) International Research Handbook on ChildhoodNature: Assemblages of Childhood and Nature Research, Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51949-4_66-1
Cole, M. & Stewart, K. (2018) ‘Advertising oppression: The reproduction of anthroparchy on UK television’, in J. Sorenson and A. Matsuoka (eds.), 2018. Critical Animal Studies: Towards Trans-species Social Justice, London: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 94-114.
Cole, M. (2017) ‘Hiding and legitimating oppression in ‘dairy product’ advertising’, in D. Nibert (ed) Capitalism and Animal Oppression, Praeger Press, pp. 19-33.
Cole, M. & Stewart, K. (2016) ‘‘I need fish fingers and custard’: The irruption and suppression of vegan ethics in Doctor Who’, in A. Potts (ed) Meat Culture, Brill Publishing, pp. 198-221. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004325852_012
Almiron, N. & Cole, M. (2016) ‘Introduction: The Convergence of Two Critical Approaches’, in Almiron, N., Cole, M. & Freeman, C.P. (eds) Critical Animal and Media Studies: Communication for Nonhuman Animal Advocacy, Routledge.
Cole, M. (2016) ‘Still ‘getting [green] beef’? The marginalization of animal ethics in climate change discourse’, in Almiron, N., Cole, M. & Freeman, C.P. (eds) Critical Animal and Media Studies: Communication for Nonhuman Animal Advocacy, Routledge.
Stewart, K. and Cole, M. (2016) ‘Reproducing the speciesist boundaries of the social: Cultural rupture in representations of ‘urban foxes’ in UK newspapers’, in Almiron, N., Cole, M. & Freeman, C.P. (eds) Critical Animal and Media Studies: Communication for Nonhuman Animal Advocacy, Routledge, pp.124-137.
Cole, M. (2014) ‘‘The Greatest Cause on Earth’: The historical formation of veganism as an ethical practice’, in N. Taylor & R. Twine (eds) The Rise of Critical Animal Studies – From the Margins to the Centre, London: Routledge, pp. 203-224.
Morgan, K. & Cole, M. (2011) ‘The discursive representation of nonhuman animals in a culture of denial’, in R. Carter & N. Charles (eds) Humans and Other Animals: Critical Perspectives, London: Palgrave, pp. 112-132
[Book Review] Language and Human Exceptionalism: A Cross-Cultural Call to Action. Tongue Tied: Breaking the Language Barrier to Animal Liberation by Hanh Nguyen (2021-08)
Cole, Matthew
Society & Animals, 29(3) (pp. 329-332)
Priorities for social science and humanities research on the challenges of moving beyond animal-based food systems (2021-02-03)
Morris, Carol; Kaljonen, Minna; Aavik, Kadri; Balázs, Bálint; Cole, Matthew; Coles, Ben; Efstathiu, Sophia; Fallon, Tracey; Foden, Mike; Giraud, Eva Haifa; Goodman, Mike; Kershaw, Eleanor Hadley; Helliwell, Richard; Hobson-West, Pru; Häyry, Matti; Jallinoja, Piia; Jones, Mat; Kaarlenkaski, Taija; Laihonen, Maarit; Lähteenmäki-Uutela, Anu; Kupsala, Saara; Lonkila, Annika; Martens, Lydia; McGlacken, Renelle; Mylan, Josephine; Niva, Mari; Roe, Emma; Twine, Richard; Vinnari, Markus and White, Richard
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8, Article 38(1)
The distance between us (2021)
Cole, M. and Stewart, K.
Psychologist, 34(1) (pp. 28-31)
Critical animal and media studies: Expanding the understanding of oppression in communication research (2018-08-31)
Almiron, Núria; Cole, Matthew and Freeman, Carrie P.
European Journal of Communication, 33(4) (pp. 367-380)
Speciesism Party: A Vegan Critique of Sausage Party (2018)
Cole, Matthew and Stewart, Kate
ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 24(4) (pp. 767-786)
Our Children and Other Animals: The Cultural Construction of Human-Animal Relations in Childhood (2016-05-23)
Cole, Matthew and Stewart, Kate
ISBN : 9781315599205 | Publisher : Routledge
That killing joke isn't funny anymore: Rebranding speciesism after Brexit (2025-08-01)
Cole, Matthew
In: Browne, Josephine and Sutton, Zoei eds. Human-Animal Relationships in Times of Pandemic and Climate Crisis: Multispecies Sociology for the New Normal (pp. 151-167)
ISBN : 9781003257912 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London
COVID-19 and Zoonotic Disease: Manufacturing and Organizing Ignorance Within the Animal-Industrial Complex (2022-10-20)
Clarke, Caroline; Barthold, Charles and Cole, Matthew
In: Tallberg, Linda and Hamilton, Lindsay eds. The Oxford Handbook of Animal Organisation Studies (57-C4.P110)
ISBN : 9780192848185 | Publisher : Oxford University Press | Published : Oxford
(Mis)representing veganism in film and television (2021)
Cole, Matthew and Stewart, Kate
In: Wright, Laura ed. The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies (pp. 319-332)
ISBN : 9781003020875 | Publisher : Routledge | Published : London
“I Need Fish Fingers and Custard”: The Irruption and Suppression of Vegan Ethics in Doctor Who (2016-11-21)
Cole, Matthew and Stewart, Kate
In: Potts, Annie ed. Meat Culture. Human-Animal Studies (17) (pp. 198-221)
Publisher : Brill | Published : Leiden
Socializing Superiority: The Cultural Denaturalization of Children’s Relations with Animals (2018-05-07)
Cole, Matthew and Stewart, Kate
Springer, Cham.