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Tom Brock

 

Conference

Australian Society for Sports History

 

 

 

SPORTING TRADITIONS XVI
Rydges Lakeside

Canberra, ACT, Australia

27-30 June 2007

 

Conference Theme

Call for Abstracts

Keynote Speakers

Program

Registration

ASSH Student Subsidy

Conference Precinct

Accommodation

Sponsors

 

Sporting Traditions XVI is the biennial conference of the Australian Society for Sport History. The event will be hosted by the University of Canberra and will bring together sport historians from around the world in a thematically oriented discussion. Sporting Traditions XVI provides a welcome opportunity to debate recent developments in sports history methods, theories and research paradigms. The event will mark the 30th anniversary of Sporting Traditions conferences, which began in Sydney in 1977. It is timely, therefore, to reflect on how the sub-discipline of sports history has evolved in Australia and New Zealand. In that regard, Sporting Traditions XVI intends to showcase some of the most innovative and reflective research in academic sports history.

 

Please visit the Conference Website for further information!

 


CONFERENCE THEME

 

The tripartite theme for Sporting Traditions XVI is ‘Conceiving, locating, and narrating sports history’. These three verbs are, arguably, central to the craft of sports history today.

 

1) The term ‘conceiving’ is chosen to explore the roles of author imagination, construction, and individual perspective in history scholarship. The baggage of historians is much more than the photocopied documents they take home from archives. Should historians therefire identify their underlying ontological position, their epistemological assumptions, and indeed locate their work in a particular research paradigm?

 

(2) The term ‘locating’ is chosen to emphasise the importance of sources, sites, and places for history. These traditionally range from archived documents and images through to museums and artefacts. Additionally, sports studies researchers have utilised interview methods and oral testimony to glean memories and information not available in official repositories. Sports scholars have also become interested in human bodies as sites for research data – such as with ideas about embodied gender differences through sport and socio-physical perceptions of ‘race’ in sports performance.

 

(3) The term ‘narrating’ relates to the processes of story-telling in history and the multi-faceted role of authors as narrators. Social and cultural historians, like writers of fiction, can be guided by conventions associated with narrative performance - characters, emplotment and style. Should historians therefore be more cognisant of the rhetorical dimensions of history writing? How might authors benefit from a better understanding of history as a discursive practice?

 


CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

  

Sporting Traditions XVI features three overarching areas of analysis – ‘conceiving, locating and narrating sports history’. Within this framework, particular discussion options have been constructed and listed in the conference program. Prospective speakers are required to conceive a talk to fit one of these topic areas. This is a strategy to ensure that each of the conference themes is systematically addressed, and that papers follow a logical sequence from one topic to another.

 

To submit abstracts, please click here!

 

Academic Presentations

 

Proposals to present academic papers will be accepted from 1 July 2006 until each of the thematic areas in the conference program is taken up. Nominations require submission of an abstract (max 250 words), which will be refereed anonymously by two academic historians. Please click here for a copy of the abstract template, which must be used for all abstract submissions. It should be forwarded to the Conference Manager, Dr Daryl Adair, via email attachment to SportingTraditions@canberra.edu.au under the subject heading ‘ASSH 2007 Abstract’. Before submission to referees, the anonymity of nominees will be protected by removal of text identifying authors. Nominees can expect to learn of the outcome of referees’ deliberations within two weeks of submitting their abstracts. Successful proposals will be included promptly in the Conference Program.

 

Student Presentations

 

Day 1 of the conference is devoted solely to student-led discussion, the contents of which are open and not subject to a refereeing process. Students may, therefore, deliver a work-in-progress from their postgraduate thesis or offer a summary of its key findings. Please click here for a copy of the abstract template for student presentations, which must be used for all abstract submissions. There is space in the program for 18 student papers. Academic supervisors are expected to write in support of a student intending to present, as per the document provided here.

 

Abstracts, Papers, Powerpoint

 

Subject to the refereeing approval process, presenters will then provide the Conference Manager with an updated abstract for submission into the Conference Program. That final document should be forwarded to the Conference Manager, Dr Daryl Adair, via email attachment to Daryl.Adair@canberra.edu.au under the subject heading ‘Updated ASSH 2007 Abstract’. In addition to an abstract, and at least 14 days prior to the conference, all speakers are expected to provide the Conference Manager with an electronic copy of their powerpoint slides (or equivalent). In the preparation of this e-document, speakers must follow the Presenter Guidelines document available here for download.* Alternatively, speakers may submit the text of a paper to be delivered, also taking into account the Presenter Guidelines.

 


KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

 

“Conceiving sports history”      Professor Allen Guttmann (Amherst College, Massachusetts, USA)
(ASSH address)*                                                                    

 

Prof Allen Guttmann is one of the founding pillars of academic sports history internationally. His research range, scope and depth of analysis are admired universally. Prof Guttman’s historical studies include analysis of the Olympic Games, sports spectators, sport and imperialism, sexuality and sport, and women in sport. His major books include From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports, Columbia Univ Press, New York, 1978; Sports Spectators, Columbia Univ Press, New York, 1986; Women’s Sports: A History, Columbia Univ Press, New York, 1991; The Erotic in Sports, Columbia Univ Press, New York, 1996; Games and Empires, Columbia Univ Press, New York, 1996; Japanese Sports: A History, Univ of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2001; and The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games, Univ of Illinois Press, Urbana, 2nd edition, 2002. Prof Guttmann has recently been awarded the North American Society of Sports History book prize for his Sports: The First Five Millennia, Univ of Massachusetts Press, Boston, (2005).

 

 

*Title to be confirmed

 

“Locating sports history”       Dr Pirkko Markula (Univ of Bath, UK)
(Reet Howell address)*                                        
                       

 

Dr Markula, who is originally from Finland, has written widely about movement culture and bodies as sites of pleasure, discipline, and objectification. Her key publications include: “Tuning into one's self: Foucault's technologies of the self and mindful fitness”, Sociology of Sport Journal, no. 21, 2004, pp190-210; “The technologies of the self: Feminism, Foucault and sport”, Sociology of Sport Journal, no. 20, 2003, pp87-107; “Beyond the perfect body: Women's body image distortion in fitness magazine discourse”, Journal of Sport and Social Issues, no. 25, 2001, pp134-155; and “Firm but shapely, fit but sexy, strong but thin: The postmodern aerobicizing of female bodies”, Sociology of Sport Journal, no. 12, 1995, pp424-453. Dr Markula’s recent books include (with Jim Denison), Moving Writing: Crafting Movement in Sport Research, Peter Lang, New York, 2003; Feminist Sport Studies: Sharing Experiences of Joy and Pain, State University of New York Press, 2005.Dr Markula’s latest book (with Richard pringle), to be released in 2007, is Foucault, Sport and Exercise, Routledge, New York.

 

 *Title to be confirmed

 

“Narrating sports history”      Dr Murray Phillips (University of Queensland, Australia)

(University of Canberra address)*                                      

 
Dr Phillips has emerged as a world leader in sports history methodology, theory and the narrative process. In this context Dr Phillips has produced “A critical appraisal of narrative in sport history: Reading the surf lifesaving debate”, Journal of Sport History, vol. 29, no. 1, 2002, pp25-40; “Deconstructing sport history: The postmodern challenge”, Journal of Sport History, vol. 28, no. 3, 2001, pp327-44; and “Diminishing contrasts and increasing varieties: Globalisation theory and ‘reading’ amateurism in Australian sport”, Sporting Traditions, vol. 18, no. 1, 2001, pp19-32. Of particular note is Dr Phillips’ most recent book: he is editor of the pathbreaking collection Sport History into the New Millennium: A Postmodern Analysis, State University of New York Press, 2005.

 

 *Title to be confirmed

 


PROGRAM

 

For a draft of the tentative program, please click here.

 


REGISTRATION

 

To register for the conference, please click here, download and print the form and return to the address noted on the form.

 


ASSH STUDENT SUBSIDY

 

ASSH seeks to encourage student participation in its conferences. To this end, full-time or part-time secondary or tertiary students who are members of ASSH and present a paper at an ASSH conference may submit original receipts, evidence of their student status, and evidence of their current ASSH membership, and request in writing that the ASSH Treasurer reimburse registration and associated conference costs. A total amount of $3000 per biennial period shall be available for this purpose. A maximum of $500 for individual full-time students will be made available as a subsidy to cover registration and associated costs for applicants who are members of ASSH, and a maximum of $250 for individual part-time students will be made available as a subsidy to cover registration and associated costs for applicants who are members of ASSH. Should the number of requests for funding exceed the amount of available funding, subsidies will be allocated on a pro-rata basis.

 

 


CONFERENCE PRECINCT

 

 

 


ACCOMMODATION

 

 

 


SPONSORS

 

 

 

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