Tag: Iowa Colloquium on Sport and Culture

This talk examines some of the multifaceted aspects of the Negro league baseball renaissance. It documents the Negro league revival, which has been expressed in myriad, sometimes surprising forms, and considers some of its cultural and historical sources. My comments, however, are just a prelude to a public conversation I want to have with people attending the Colloquium. What do people think it means that so many people are now (relatively) knowledgeable about long forgotten or neglected Black baseball teams and players?

The relationship between postwar television broadcast and the Civil Rights Movement is complex. In an effort to untangle some of this fraught history, this talk examines the entanglements between live television broadcasts and interracial prizefighting in the 1950s and 1960s. Looking at the history of live prizefight broadcast as well as the TV and film versions of Rod Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight (produced in 1956 and 1962, respectively), the talk analyzes the ways live broadcast technology was shaped by (and shaped in turn) the post-segregation racial regime.

In this talk, I examine the implications of social media platforms in relation to agenda diversity during the Olympic Games. I overview recent datapoints on representations of sport, gender, and national identity from multiple contexts (e.g., United States, Australia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary) to illustrate that nationalism continues to be a driving force in coverage, albeit with local particularities. I problematize notions of “gender equality” in media representations that obscure gendered nationalism and perpetuate “us versus them” divisions.

In this presentation, we will share elements of our work-in-progress about the history and culture of women’s mountain biking. One of the goals of this book project is to make visible the historical experiences of women in mountain biking, but to go beyond simply adding women’s experiences to the broader history of mountain biking. Rather, we seek to examine the ways in which women’s participation alters the stories/narratives that are told about mountain biking history and fundamentally changes the space of mountain biking.

The plastic safety helmet, developed for use in American football by sporting goods manufacturer Riddell in 1939, is, fundamentally, merely a piece of protective equipment. Originally designed to prevent skull fractures–devastating injuries that resulted in multiple fatalities through the first 60 years of football history—the new helmet quickly became much more than a means of injury protection.

Dr. Brown’s research centers the experiences of Black women and girls in sports, media, and education. She is a Black feminist sociologist whose work is intersectional and interdisciplinary. Her public scholarship can be found on First and Pen, and her academic work can be found in journals including Race & Social Problems, the South African Review of Sociology, and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 

Dr. David L. Andrews (University of Maryland) will be presenting “Conjunction-Articulation-Assemblage: Theorizing Trump’s Sporting America” for the Iowa Colloquium on Sport and Culture this Friday, May 6th at 4:00 CST. The online and zoomified event is free and open to the public, though registration is required. There will be lots of time for discussion after the talk, and we are looking forward to sharing some ideas.

Dr. Maryam Aziz (Penn State University) will be presenting “’Sports are for everyone, Sports are for the people': Socialism, Black Power, and Sport within the Black Panther Party” for the Iowa Colloquium on Sport and Culture this Friday, October 22nd from 4:00-5:00 CST. The online and zoomified event is free and open to the public. There will be lots of time for discussion after the talk, and we are looking forward to sharing some ideas.