Sports Archives - Public Seminar

Sex & Gender

A League of Their Own

From Rio’s local pitches to the Gay Games, queer athletes challenge the presumed heterosexuality of Brazil’s national sport

February 18, 2026 • by C. K. Snyder

One of the teams that created the LiGay [the amateur Brazilian “Gay League”] was the BeesCats Soccer Boys from Rio de Janeiro. Organizers formed the team in 2017 with a triple aim: to demonstrate that gay men are indeed futebolistas, to help players overcome personal trauma, and to assert their ...

Sports

Feminism, Sports, and Football in North Korea

Women’s football is one of the very few areas in which North Korea can display excellence to international audiences

February 3, 2026 • by Jung Woo Lee

While North Korea's political doctrine displays a revisionist character that combines nationalism with communism, traditional socialist feminism still influences its gender policy. The key tenet of socialist feminism includes the emancipation of women from economic dependency on their male counterparts and their liberation from confinement to household duties (Mojab 2015). ...

Feminism, Sports, and Football in North Korea

Media

Eight Months to Learn Spanish

The 2026 World Cup will be a revelation, proving soccer’s arrival in the United States and inviting more Americans to see themselves as part of a Spanish-speaking Americas

November 25, 2025 • by Sean Jacobs and Ivan Pech Luna

On Sunday, October 26, Spain’s two powerhouse clubs, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, met once again in El Clásico, the name given to any clash between the two. Both teams command massive global followings, including in the United States, and this weekend was no exception. The match, held at the ...

History

The Rare Beauty of Folkstyle Wrestling

Has the American wrestling community made a Faustian bargain for Olympic gold—at the expense of its own heritage?

March 13, 2025 • by Justin Muchnick

To an outsider, the sport of wrestling might seem like a monolith—a muscular clump of writhing barbarity. But on January 17, when the members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) made the landmark decision to add women’s wrestling as an official championship sport, they faced a procedural question with ...

Feminism

Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot

Girlhood and spectacle in a gutsy debut novel

October 8, 2024 • by Madeleine Adams

In her debut novel, Rita Bullwinkel portrays girlhood as a full-throttle battle, fought out over the course of a high school girls’ boxing tournament. Duking out their identities in the male-dominated space of the boxing ring, the protagonists of Headshot (Viking, 2024) both enact and undermine the familiar spectacle of ...

Race

Bad Breaking

The anti-Black racism and sexism behind the sport’s lackluster Olympic debut

October 4, 2024 • by Alexa Joy

The inclusion of breakdancing in the Paris Olympics this year turned out to be nothing short of a spectacle. From the beginning, the sport was met with hostility and confusion. Australian squash player Michelle Martin, frustrated after years of lobbying for the inclusion of her sport, called breaking’s debut a ...

East Asia & Pacific

“Village NBA” in China

When sports fandom meets rural governance

September 9, 2024 • by Gil Hizi

The driver of bus number 25 knew where I was heading the moment I stepped inside. Although he met few foreigners during his three years on this line (as he later told me), he assumed that I could only be heading to the “NBA village” of Taipan in the Guizhou ...

Sports

Inside the Sports Subsidy Industrial Complex

Phony numbers, huge conflicts of interest, and bad journalism

May 1, 2023 • by Pat Garofalo

And that’s the crux of it: stadium boosters always trot out these outlandish economic impact studies to justify taxpayer investments that never pay off....

Sports

Even If She Never Hits Another Ball, Serena Williams Is the GOAT

A conversation with historian Tera Hunter about the greatest woman ever to play the game of tennis—what she overcame, and where she is going—and why Serena’s legacy is intertwined with sister Venus

August 15, 2022 • by Claire Potter

Racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, classism, etc. are all an unfortunate part of sports, which are a reflection of all that transpires in the rest of society. Some sports are worse than others, however. Tennis is an elite country club game that has been reluctant to open up to plebeians—all of ...

Even If She Never Hits Another Ball, Serena Williams Is the GOAT

Sports

Bear Fight in Chicago

We all need to remember that we may love our sports teams but they don’t love us back

October 8, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

Football season is well and truly underway, and so, apparently, is football stadium subsidy season. First it was the Buffalo Bills, and now it’s the Chicago Bears, whose owners started the process of purchasing land that would allow the team to move from its current home at Soldier Field in ...

Sports

Don’t Feel Guilty for Loving Football

Just be honest about it

October 6, 2021 • by Stephen T. Casper

It was a punishing number of hits every game, but the guy was tough. As author Louie Robinson described him in a December 1968 Ebony Magazine profile, O.J. Simpson was six feet, two inches tall, weighed 207 pounds and could run 100 yards in 9.4 seconds. A transfer to the University of ...

Sports

A League of Their Own

From Rio’s local pitches to the Gay Games, queer athletes challenge the presumed heterosexuality of Brazil’s national sport

Feminism, Sports, and Football in North Korea

Women’s football is one of the very few areas in which North Korea can display excellence to international audiences

Eight Months to Learn Spanish

The 2026 World Cup will be a revelation, proving soccer’s arrival in the United States and inviting more Americans to see themselves as part of a Spanish-speaking Americas

The Rare Beauty of Folkstyle Wrestling

Has the American wrestling community made a Faustian bargain for Olympic gold—at the expense of its own heritage?

Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot

Girlhood and spectacle in a gutsy debut novel

Bad Breaking

The anti-Black racism and sexism behind the sport’s lackluster Olympic debut

“Village NBA” in China

When sports fandom meets rural governance

Inside the Sports Subsidy Industrial Complex

Phony numbers, huge conflicts of interest, and bad journalism

Even If She Never Hits Another Ball, Serena Williams Is the GOAT

A conversation with historian Tera Hunter about the greatest woman ever to play the game of tennis—what she overcame, and where she is going—and why Serena’s legacy is intertwined with sister Venus

Bear Fight in Chicago

We all need to remember that we may love our sports teams but they don’t love us back

Don’t Feel Guilty for Loving Football

Just be honest about it

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