Dear all,
This week includes the 1 of May, which means we’ll be losing a working day celebrating the International Workers’ Day. Worth it, methinks.
Last week the following items were published on idrottsforum.org (see below; language and publication dates, YYMMDD, in brackets). Click on the red headings to go to content. Utilize the Google Translate service to turn Scandinavian language pages into (some sort of) English.
Have a great week,
Kjell Eriksson
Editor
Book Reviews
The UEFA European Football Championships: Politics, Media Spectacle and Social Change, by Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen & Renan Petersen-Wagner
In their book The UEFA European Football Championships: Politics, Media Spectacle and Social Change (Routledge), Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen and Renan Petersen-Wagner explore social and political issues and trends emerging around the UEFA European Football Championships. Björn Horgby, professor of history, is impressed by the large number of balls being kicked up in the air; however, he laments that the limited number of pages prevented the authors from following up on many ideas that would need in-depth analyses of UEFA and the championships. (Review in English, published 240423.)
Critical Issues in Football: A Sociological Analysis of the Beautiful Game, by Will Roberts, Stuart Whigham, Alex Culvin & Daniel Parnell (eds.)
Roberts, Whigham, Culvin & Parnell’s edited collection Critical Issues in Football: A Sociological Analysis of the Beautiful Game (Routledge) sheds critical new light on key issues in contemporary football, with each chapter using a different theoretical lens. This leads our reviewer Arve Hjelseth to commending the inclusion of major sociological thinkers, but also to the conclusion that the book, which he considers a useful addition to the critical study of football, is not ‘a sociological analysis’ but rather many analyses. And that’s football for you. (Review in English, published 240424.)
How College Athletics Are Hurting Girls’ Sports: The Pay-to-Play Pipeline, by Rick Eckstein
In How College Athletics Are Hurting Girls’ Sports: The Pay-to-Play Pipeline (Rowman & Littlefield) Rick Eckstein looks closely at college sports and chronicles how college and youth sports have become more commercialized, to the detriment of participants. Nicholas Zoroya is our reviewer, and although he finds Eckstein’s book a substantial contribution to the conversation on youth sports, he also thinks that the author, while rightly putting a lot of blame on the commodification of college sports, also lets the parents off way too easy. (Review in English, published 240426.)
New Issues of Scholarly Journals
(We’re currently reviewing this service, since it’s a rather time-consuming undertaking. In the meanwhile we’re presenting some of the journals in line with the Forum’s core mission.)
Scandinavian Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Vol. 6, 2024 | Open Access (240422)- Journal of Emerging Sport Studies, Vol 9, Summer 2023 (240423)
- Communication & Sport, Vol. 12, 2024, No. 2 (240424)
- Sport, Education and Society, Volume 29, 2024, Issue 4 (240425)
- Communication & Sport, Vol. 12, 2024, No. 3 (240428)
News items (calls for papers, vacancies, etc.)
- Call for Participation | Sounding Out: Works in Progress at the Sport/Sound Nexis | Zoom event, Friday April 26, 2024, 1 PM EDT (7 PM CEST) (240422)
- Call for Participation | Webinar: Storytelling, Entrepreneurship, and Community Ownership – Insights from Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) Practitioners | May 14, 2024 (240423)
- Call for Papers | “Politics, Sport, and Communication: A Global Review”, Special Issue of International Journal of Sport Communication | Call ends January 31, 2025 (240428)
