Posbergh’s Purple Patch!

It has been quite a few weeks for PCSer Anna Posbergh, whose scholarship has been recognized in the following ways:

1. Olympic Studies Centre PhD/Early Career Research Grant: Anna was awarded a PhD grant from the Olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland.  The grant is intended for PhD students engaged in social science/qualitative research on the Olympic Movement, and will fund a month long stay in Switzerland, during which time Anna will pursue archival research at the Olympic Studies Centre.  Her research project will explore the ‘scientization’ of fair play and ideas of fairness in sport policy, especially as manifest in transgender regulations. For more information on the grant see HERE.

2. Yale Summer Institute in Bioethics:  In addition, Anna was recently accepted into a 7-week immersion program in bioethics at Yale University organized by the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics.  The purposes of the program is to develop a deeper knowledge of bioethics and understand how to incorporate bioethics into current scholarship and research.  For more information on the program see HERE.

3. KNES GRIP award: Anna’s doctoral dissertation research will be, at least partly, funded by a $2500 award given by the UMD Department of Kinesiology, supported by the Gebhard-Phillips Graduate Student Fund.  This award will fund a 2-week research trip to the International Olympic Committee meetings, in Monaco, March 2020.  The purpose of the trip isto collect data (interviews with sport scientists, policymakers, and other stakeholders) for Anna’s dissertation. For GRIP award details see HERE. 

4. Reading the Past Critically, the NASSH sponsored workshop designed to honor the influential scholarship of Dr. Susan Birrell.   Anna (in conjunction with PCS alum, Sam Clevenger) had their paper–focused on the possibilities of using intertextuality as a decolonizing method when analyzing Western media representations of Caster Semenya–accepted at this prestigious workshop, to be held in Chicago, March 20-21, 2020.  For more information on the workshop see HERE

Clearly, Anna has had a remarkable few weeks.  Sincerest congratulations!

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Tredway’s Double!

PCS alum, Kristi Tredway (now teaching at St. Mary’s College of Maryland) had two notable achievements in recent times.

First, Kristi was awarded a NIH-funded T32 post-doctoral fellowship in cancer epidemiology, prevention, and control, at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.  Amongst other things, during this two-year fellowship, Kristi will be working on research related to LGBTQ and Black women’s experience accessing breast cancer screenings.  Her mentors will be Dr. Lori Dean in the Department of Epidemiology (http://drdeanlab.com), and Dr. Melissa Camp in the Division of Surgical Oncology in the School of Medicine.

Second, November saw the publication of Kristi’s book “Social Activism in Women’s Tennis: Generations of Politics and Cultural Change” (London, Routledge).

Based largely on her doctoral dissertation research, this book represents the first, in-depth analysis of social activism within women’s professional tennis from 1968 to the present day.  It can be purchased direct from Routledge here.

Congratulations to Kristi on these fantastic achievements!

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Pre-NASSS Symposium

On Tuesday November 5 in  in the Friedgen Lounge (SPH 2236), and in the lead up to the annual conference of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (held in Virginia Beach, November 6 – November 9),  the PCS Research Group held a pre-NASSS symposium titled “PCS in Future Tense”,

The “PCS in Future Tense” symposium featured four presentations:

Presentation 1: 11.00-11.45am

“Girls’ life skills education through sport in a context of change” 

Christina Kwauk (Brookings Institution)

Presentation 2: 11.45-12.30pm

“Brain Banking, Head Trauma, and the Future of Football”

Daniel Grano (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)

Presentation 3: 1.30-2.15pm

“Skill Adaptation in Sport:  Affordances as Physical Cultural Formations”

Jim Denison (University of Alberta)

Presentation 4: 2.15-3.00pm

“Foucault and Deleuze’s Methodologies for Research on the Material Moving Body”

Pirkko Markula (University of Alberta)

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See here for more information: www.putneyway.com/PreNASSS2019/index.html

Posbergh in the British Medical Journal

In the wake of the recent ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Caster Semenya’s long-running dispute with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), PCSer Anna Posbergh (in conjunction with Sheree Bekker) wrote an opinion piece in the British Medical Journal, which can be accessed HERE.

Congrats Anna!

 

Wallace Named Dean’s Scholar

Second year M.A. PCSer, Brandon Wallace was recently named a 2019 Dean’s Scholar Award recipient. This award is given to students who have first and foremost excelled academically in the classroom, demonstrating curiosity, maturity, creativity, motivation and intellect.

Award recipients are engaged citizens of the School and have made a notable impression on their department, faculty and peers through their academic and co-curricular achievements.

Congratulations Brandon!

 

Esmonde Excels in Doctoral Defense

On Thursday March 7th, Katie Esmonde successfully defended her doctoral dissertation titled “The Datafication of Everyday Life: Critically Contextualizing the ‘Quantified Self’ in Physical Culture”, in front of an enthralled group of PCS faculty, students, and supporters.

The dissertation committee consisted of Dr. Shannon Jette (chair and advisor), Dr. Adam Beissel (Miami University, OH), Dr. Cheryl Cooky (Purdue University), Dr. Jason Farman, and Dr. David L. Andrews.

Heartiest congratulations, the soon-to-be Dr. Esmonde!

Thompson Wins AKA Scholar Award

UMD PCSer Tori Thompson was recently the recipient of the American Kinesiology Association’s Masters Scholar Award.

This annual award recognizes at the national level, the academic and leadership accomplishments of masters students in AKA member departments.

The award is intended to recognize and promote academic excellence, to further the professional competence and dedication of academically accomplished masters students and to promote kinesiology and its related fields.

Congratulations Tori!!!

UMD PCS Shines at NASSS 2018 Vancouver

UMD PCS researchers were well represented at the annual conference of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport, held in Vancouver, BC, October 31st to November 3rd.

Katie Esmonde became the second UMD PCSer (after Mike Friedman in 2008)  to win the Barbara Brown Outstanding Student Paper Award (Doctoral level) for her paper “There’s only so much data you can handle in your life’: Accommodating and resisting self-surveillance in women’s running and fitness tracking practices.” 

 

 

 

Tori Thompson won Gary Sailes Graduate Diversity Scholarship (Masters level).

 

 

 

 

UMD PCS graduate Josh Newman (PhD, 2005) completed his term as NASSS President and delivered his keynote Presidential Address titled “Sport Sociology, In Question.”

UMD PCS graduate Ryan King-White (PhD, 2008) was named a NASSS Research Fellow

UMD PCS graduate Julie Brice (BA, 2015; MA, 20017) earned an honorable mention for the Barbara Brown Outstanding Student Paper Award (Doctoral level).

In addition, research presentations were made by the following current UMD PCSers: Eric Stone; Katie Esmonde; Tori Thompson; Mike Friedman; Yang (Sunny) Zhang; Shaun Edmonds; Anna Posbergh; Brandon Wallace; and, Shannon Jette.

What a great turnout, congratulations one and all!

 

 

“Confronting the Crisis”: The 11th Annual Physical Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference

Friday April 27th in the Friedgen Family Student Lounge (SPH 2236)

See HERE for full conference schedule.

The Physical Cultural Studies (PCS) Graduate Student Association – located within the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Maryland, College Park – will host their 11th Annual Graduate Student Conference on Friday, April 27th, 2018 at the School of Public Health Building. This one-day conference will consist of a series of student presentations as well as a panel to discuss the murder of Lt. Richard Collins III on the University of Maryland Campus and the controversy surrounding the University’s response. This year the conference is fortunate to have an alumni keynote presentation by Dr. Jacob Bustad, PCS alumnus and assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology in the College of Health Professions at Towson University.

This year, the conference will be organized around the theme, “Confronting the Crisis: Harnessing Praxis and Combatting Complacency.” In this eleventh year of the conference, it is clear that scholars in many disciplines are recognizing the need to expand their research beyond the confines of Higher Education. The Physical Cultural Studies project at the University of Maryland acknowledges the need to develop and strategically disseminate potentially empowering forms of knowledge, and seeks to illuminate, and hopefully intervene into, sites of injustice and inequity. As members of a School of Public Health, translation in this context is an important tool that enables scholars to present their work to a public audience, yet the divide between the academy and the public seemingly grows every day.

Esmonde Scoops a Wylie!

PCSer Katie Esmonde has been awarded a prestigious Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship for a semester during the 2018-2019 academic year.  The Wylie Fellowship is designed to support students in the latter stages of writing their dissertations, and carries a $15,000 stipend, a candidacy tuition award, and  credit for mandatory fees for one semester.

Katie’s successful application was based on here dissertation research, and was titled ““Critically Contextualizing the Quantified Self.”

Heartiest congratulations to Katie!