SEMINAR: Chicago Seminar on Sport and Culture

THE CHICAGO SEMINAR ON SPORT AND CULTURE

Sport, Social Intervention and Public Sociology

by

Peter A. Donnelly
Professor, Faculty of Physical Education and Health,
Director, Center for Sports Studies
University of Toronto

and

Michael Atkinson
Associate Professor, Faculty of Physical Education and Health, University of Toronto

We are pleased to invite you to the next session of the Chicago Seminar on Sport and Culture at the Newberry Library, March 19, 2010, at 3:30 PM, co-sponsored by Northeastern Illinois University and North Central College. The lecture is open to the public at no charge. The Newberry Library is located at 80 W. Walton, Chicago, IL.

The authors will address the prospects and future horizons of a more vibrant, engaged and politically active public sociology of sport. In 2004, Michael Burawoy argued in his presidential address at the American Sociological Association that “the world needs public sociology—a sociology that transcends the academy. . . .The critical imagination, exposing the gap between what is and what could be infuses values into public sociology to remind us that the world could bee different. Donnelly and Atkinson believe that a public sociology of sport must account for and intervene into the barriers within sport and leisure fields that deny access to and freedom of participation/expression for all. It should go beyond critical sociological research and try to find resolutions to social problems in sport at local, national, and international levels. Academic work would thus have a practical and interventionist purpose beyond the ivory tower. They ask whether the sociology of sport makes a difference, and if so, “whose knowledge counts?


Prof. Donnelly’s publications include Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies (2009).

Prof. Atkinson’s most recent book is Battleground: Sports (2008)

For further information, contact Steve Riess, chair of the seminar, at 773 442 5631 or (preferred) s-riess@neiu.edu.