Sports in Society Podcast

S2 EP 12 - Age & Sports Participation

Drs. Jessica Kirby (UCCS) and Cassandra Phoenix (Durham Univ) join us to discuss aging and sports participation across the life course. We begin by challenging the ageist narrative of aging as a process of decline. We push back on that idea to argue that people across their life course participate in sports in a variety of ways and for a variety of purposes including skill development, competition, exercise, and community building. We go on to explore older adults' different engagements in sports and barriers they experience. We ultimately focus on ways in which sports participation can be encouraged at all ages from youth to older years. Join the conversation of the Sports in Society discord server: https://discord.gg/QDzzETYThv

S2 EP 11 - Studying Pleasures - Taylor Swift & the NFL

Cheryl Cooky and Molly Cotner join us to talk about the complexities and contradictions of Taylor Swift and her engagements with the NFL. Contemporary feminism and postfeminism are central to the discussion: Ways in which pop and girl culture are trivialized and overlooked, men's angry reactions to Taylor Swift and her fans' presence in NFL football, how Taylor Swift is a commodity in the body of a person, and ways in which she embodies white feminism. This episode is both fun and serious, much like Taylor Swift, and it touches on issues of gender, race, politics, media, economy, and research. What are your thoughts about Taylor Swift? Join the discussion on the Sports in Society discord server: https://discord.gg/QDzzETYThv

S2 EP 10 - Trans-Athletes and What is "Fair"

Anna Baeth and Madeleine Pape join us to discuss the highly politicized and complicated issue of trans-athletes in contemporary sports. At the heart of this discussion is debates about fairness, the meaning sex and gender, and positive outcomes of sports participation. This episode is directly relevant to chapter 7 on gender and sexuality as well as chapter 13 on sports and politics. This episode is incredibly important for sports scholars and practitioners alike as we make sense of complicated and contradictory claims about bodies and truth. What are your thoughts? Jump onto the Sports and Society Discord server to join the conversation: https://discord.gg/QDzzETYThv

S2 EP 9 - Producing Feminist Sports Knowledge

Michael Messner (USC) and Michela Musto (Brown Univ) join us to talk about how feminist sociology helps us to produce new, useful knowledge about sports and the social world. This is a companion episode to chapter 2 "Producing Knowledge About Sports in Society". We jump off from Messner's famous article "Barbie Girls and Sea Monsters" that analyzes a moment in youth sports that reveals how gender operates at the interactional level, the institutional or contextual level, and cultural level simultaneously. We then discuss how Musto builds on that research when studying a gender integrated swimming club to show how gender can be more or less salient across sporting spaces. We conclude with a discussion of how sociological knowledge has powerful uses in real world sports settings that can guide sports professionals when managing sports programs. What do you think? Join our Discord server to participate in the discussion: https://discord.gg/QDzzETYThv

S2 EP 8 -- Outdoor Sports and Land Use

Cory Sutela and Shayne McCormick of Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates join us to discuss the pleasures and politics of mountain biking. We talk through how a vision for a well-designed, integrated trail system is developed over a period of decades and how the politics of land use is negotiated in that process. We go on to discuss the pleasures of mountain biking and how it can heal individuals and communities as well as contradictions around sustainability. This is a must listen episode for people interested local level sport management issues and opportunities. Join our Sports in Society discord server to join the conversation: https://discord.gg/QDzzETYThv