Clevenger makes his mark in Rethinking History

PCSer Sam Clevenger recently had an article, titled “Sport history, modernity and the logic of coloniality: a case for decoloniality”, published in the journal Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice.

The abstract to the article is as follows:

This essay argues that the predominant narratives within sport history have remained problematically wedded to assumptions and concepts of Western capitalist modernity. As a result, such sport historiography reinforces modernity’s epistemology as the universal system of knowledge in modern world sporting history by relying on modern sport as a primary category of analysis. By relying on categories and assumptions of Western [sporting] modernity within their historical narratives, such sport histories stymie the possibility of giving historical and poetic representation to non-Western and pre-modern modes of knowledge. While sport historiography has benefitted from deconstructionist histories and postcolonial theories, there remains a need to further problematize sport as the field’s predominant means of representing physical cultural pasts. In order to aid the deconstruction of the universalizing epistemology of Western sporting modernity, the essay introduces and discusses some of the prominent works in decoloniality, particularly those by Anibal Quijano, Maria Lugones and Walter Mignolo. A sport history field informed by decolonial thinking offers the potential consideration of alternative decolonized avenues of historical representation, helping sport historians explore the possibilities in writing deconstructionist and epistemologically-decolonized histories of physical culture.

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Click HERE for direct access to the article.

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Accessing Live Feeds of the 10th Annual PCS Graduate Student Conference, Friday April 28th

You are cordially invited to access the online live feed of the 10th Annual Graduate Student Conference on Friday April 28th, 2017, held at the School of Public Health Building on the University of Maryland College Park campus (see below for online access details).

This one-day conference consists of a series of student presentations commenced with a keynote by Dr. Michael Friedman, PCS alumnus and current Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at UMD and a very special PCS address by Dr. Lucia Trimbur, Associate Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the City University of New York graduate center.

This year, the conference is organized around the theme, “Redefining the Body in Physical Culture.” In the ten years since the conference’s inception at the University of Maryland, the project of Physical Cultural Studies has expanded its scope of research beyond the physical corpus. Increasingly, researchers have shifted their focus to the spaces/places that bodies inhabit, the impact of technologies on health and body, the effects of non-human agents in physical culture, as well as other topics that extend agency to non-humans. This work, as well as calls from within PCS to move beyond anthropocentrism, have led to questions of what the “physical” is in the critical study of physical culture.

Topic: 10th Annual Physical Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference
Host: Eric Stone
Date and Time:
Friday, April 28, 2017 9:00 am, Eastern Daylight Time (New York, GMT-04:00)
Event number: 738 940 887
Event password: p3ppVPMk

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To join the online event
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1. Click here to join the online event.
Or copy and paste the following link to a browser:
https://umd.webex.com/umd/onstage/g.php?MTID=e471eab3c3afebbaa0866607d10c38c2c
2. Click “Join Now”.

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To join the audio conference only
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US Toll: +1-415-655-0002
Global call-in numbers: https://umd.webex.com/umd/globalcallin.php?serviceType=EC&ED=550614452&tollFree=0
Access code: 738 940 887

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For assistance
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You can contact Eric Stone at:
estone14@umd.edu

Can’t join the event?

The playback of UCF (Universal Communications Format) rich media files requires appropriate players. To view this type of rich media files in the meeting, please check whether you have the players installed on your computer by going to https://umd.webex.com/umd/onstage/systemdiagnosis.php

https://www.webex.com

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This WebEx service includes a feature that allows audio and any documents and other materials exchanged or viewed during the session to be recorded. By joining this session, you automatically consent to such recordings. If you do not consent to the recording, discuss your concerns with the meeting host prior to the start of the recording or do not join the session. Please note that any such recordings may be subject to discovery in the event of litigation.

10th Annual Physical Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference:

Redefining the Body in Physical Culture April 28th, 2017

The Physical Cultural Studies (PCS) research program – housed within the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Maryland – is hosting their 10th Annual Graduate Student Conference on Friday April 28th, 2017 at the School of Public Health Building on the College Park campus. This one-day conference consists of a series of student presentations commenced with a keynote by Dr. Michael Friedman, PCS alumnus and current Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at UMD and a very special PCS address by Dr. Lucia Trimbur, Associate Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the City University of New York graduate center.

This year, the conference is organized around the theme, “Redefining the Body in Physical Culture.” In the ten years since the conference’s inception at the University of Maryland, the project of Physical Cultural Studies has expanded its scope of research beyond the physical corpus. Increasingly, researchers have shifted their focus to the spaces/places that bodies inhabit, the impact of technologies on health and body, the effects of non-human agents in physical culture, as well as other topics that extend agency to non-humans. This work, as well as calls from within PCS to move beyond anthropocentrism, have led to questions of what the “physical” is in the critical study of physical culture.

Click here to download the PCS conference program (including abstracts).

Click here to download the PCS conference schedule of presentations.

Roberts’ Research Appears in Preventive Medicine Reports

Dr. Jennifer Roberts had an article titled “Electronic media time and sedentary behaviors in children: Findings from the Built Environment and Active Play Study in the Washington DC area” published in Preventive Medicine Reports.

Click here for full access to the article: Full Article

Abstract

An objective of the Built Environment and Active Play (BEAP) Study was to examine whether home built environment, bedroom electronic presence, parental rules and demographics predicted children’s sedentary behavior (SB). In 2014, BEAP Study questionnaires were mailed to 2000 parents of children (7–12 years) within the Washington DC area. SB-Duration (hours/day) and SB-Frequency (days/week) were assessed by two questions with multiple subparts relating to SB activity type (e.g. car riding) and SB companionship (e.g. friends). Built environment, bedroom electronic presence, parental rules and demographic data were obtained through questionnaire items and ordered logistic regression models were used to examine whether these variables were associated with SB. Study sample included 144 children (female (50%); average age (9.7 years); White (56.3%); Black/African-American (23.7%); Asian-Americans (10.4%)). Nearly 40% of the sample reported daily solitary SB with car riding being the most frequently reported type of SB. Children living on streets without a dead-end/cul-de-sac exhibited a higher odds in SB-Duration using electric media [2.61 (CI: 1.31, 5.18)] and having no television in a child’s bedroom was associated with a lower odds in SB-Frequency [0.048 (CI: 0.006, 0.393)] and SB-Duration [0.085 (CI: 0.018, 0.395)]. Non-Hispanic/Latino children were also found to have higher odds in solitary SB-Frequency when parental rules of electronic use were modeled [8.56 (CI: 1.11, 66.01)]. Based on results from this cross-sectional study, home neighborhood built environment, bedroom electronic presence and absence of parental rules can significantly predict children’s SB.

Keywords

• Sedentary behavior;
• BEAP Study;
• Built environment;
• Electronic use;
• Parental rules

 

 

Call for Abstracts: The 10th Annual Physical Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference

“Redefining the Body in Physical Culture”

Friday,  April 28th, 2017

Call for Abstracts

The Physical Cultural Studies Graduate Student Association – located within the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Maryland, College Park – will host their 10th Annual Graduate Student Conference on Friday, April 28th, 2017 at the School of Public Health Building. This one-day conference will consist of a series of student presentations as well as an expert panel to discuss the implications of the renovations of Cole Field House at the University of Maryland.

This year the conference is lucky enough to have two keynote presentations: an alumni keynote presentation by Dr. Michael Friedman, Physical Cultural Studies (PCS) alumnus and current Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at UMD and a very special PCS address by Dr. Lucia Trimbur, Associate Professor of Sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the City University of New York graduate center.

Routledge Handbook of Physical Cultural Studies: Out Now!

The handbook, featuring 58 chapters over 610 pages, written by leading figures within the field (including UMD PCSers present and past: Shannon Jette; Jake Bustad; Bryan Clift; Josh Newman; Ryan King-White; and, Michael Silk) has recently been published.

It is divided into nine parts (Groundings; Practices; Subjectified Bodies; Institutionalized Bodies; Experiential Bodies; Spaces; Contexts and Sites of Embodied Practice; Methodological Contingencies; Politics and Praxis).

The intention of the handbook is to contribute to the on-going formulation of the PCS project. As such, the various contributions to the handbook elucidate PCS as “a site of both internal and external struggle for precisely what it [PCS] should and could be now and, perhaps more importantly, in the future” (Silk, Andrews, & Thorpe, 2017, p. 2).

The handbook is available from Routledge here: Routledge Handbook of Physical Cultural Studies.

PCS’ Latest PhD!: Kristi Tredway

Congratulations to Dr. Kristi Tredway, the latest PCS student to graduate from the PhD program in the Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park.

Kristi defended her dissertation–titled “Charging the Net: Social Activism in Women’s Professional Tennis–in April, and was officially hooded (by Dr. Shannon Jette) at the School of Public Health commencement ceremony on May 20.

Congratulations Kristi!!!!!