Dear all,
Last week, the first of the fall semester, 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.
And remember, if you’re not already hooked up to one of the social media outlets that we utilize, for now they are Facebook, LinkedIn and X, you’re missing quite a lot of information from idrottsforum.org that never appears on the website; this week no less than 40 updates on each, the same on all three. So, if that is the case, check out, by clicking on the names, our Facebook, LinkedIn and X accounts.
Have a great week,
Kjell Eriksson
Editor
Book Reviews
Factually accurate, simple and organized, a wonderful textbook
Pamela Grundy’s and Benjamin Rader’s American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of the Internet (Routledge) provides a comprehensive and analytical look at how athletics have shaped and reflected American culture from the precolonial era to the modern day. We asked Łukasz Muniowski to read and review it’s new, ninth edition, and, having also used the previous edition to prepare his classes on American sports, his conclusion that it is “a wonderful textbook” must be considered well-founded. (Review in English, published 260831.)
Confronting sexual misconduct in sport: Theory, survivor narratives and safeguarding
Sexual misconduct in any environment is a gross abuse of trust and this is no different within the sport world. Tanya Prewitt-White and Leslee Fisher’s edited collection Examining and Mitigating Sexual Misconduct in Sport (Routledge) outlines systemic and sociological explanations for why sport is a site of sexual misconduct. Our reviewer is Angela Stănescu, and she concludes that the volume is an essential read and constitutes a significant contribution to the increasing body of knowledge about sexual misconduct and its consequences for individuals as well as for sports. (Review in English, published 260901.)
Three Decades of Turbulence and Transformation: Evaluating the IWG on Women and Sport
Elizabeth C.J. Pike’s The International Working Group on Women and Sport 1994-2024: The Challenge of Change (Routledge) evaluates the role of the IWG in influencing global and domestic policy and practice. In his review, Alexis Sossa finds that the volume, situated at the intersection of sports governance, political sociology, and transnational feminist mobilisation, charts the institutional evolution of the IWG. However, while the text successfully maps the bureaucratic trajectory of this movement, its reliance on executive-level discourse inadvertently reveals the persistent theoretical tensions between elite policy formulation and grassroots feminist praxis. (Review in English, published 260904.)
New Blog Post
Raygun turned her Olympic flop into a media career. Now Netflix is helping with the rewrite, by David Rowe
The 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics are remembered for many arresting moments, from the astounding Opening Ceremony on the River Seine, to the grand return of champion gymnast Simone Biles. Less conventionally, millions will recall the performance of Australian breaking athlete B-girl Rachael Gunn – aka Raygun – that reverberated wildly across the globe for long afterwards.Calculating that she could not compete with her opponents’ athleticism, Gunn developed a breaking aesthetic based on Australiana. Dressed in an Australian tracksuit, while kangaroo hopping and jerking like a water sprinkler, she tried to impress the judges with creativity rather than power moves… (Published in English 260902.)
Scholarly Journals
Since its inception 23 years ago, idrottsforum.org has been proudly presenting every new issue of almost all scholarly journals within the field of sport studies, widely defined. However, after carefully considering the whole situation – with increasing number of journals and number of issues per journal – we have decided to let go of the original ambition; it has become too time-consuming. Henceforth we will publish alerts about new journal issues on our social media accounts (Facebook, LinkedIn and X), and also special alerts when particularly interesting articles in scholarly journals are published online, giving priority to open access publications. The Scholarly Journals page will list all journals within the extended sport studies field for your information, and we will endeavor to update it with any new titles being launched.
News items (calls for papers, vacancies, etc.)
- Call for Participation | Gender Policing in African Sporting Contexts | Zoom webinar, September 4, 2026 (260831)
- Call for Papers | ”Grassroots to Elite Sport: Creating Safe, Supportive, and Healthy Environments”, SVEBI-konferensen 2026 | Umeå universitet, den 4–5 november 2026. Deadline den 15 September 2026 (260831)
- Call for Papers | The 2026 Sport Entertainment & Venues Tomorrow (SEVT) Conference | University of South Carolina, November 12–13, 2026. Call ends October 9, 2026 (260902)
- Call for Papers | The 9th annual conference for the Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Research (CSSOR) | California State University, Fullerton, March 11–12, 2027. Call ends December 1, 2026 (260905)
