IRiSS Research Seminars 2014-2015 - Semester 2 (2015)

All welcome; no fee to attend.

#3 Dr Jung Woo Lee (The University of Edinburgh) 

“The 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games and Sports Mega-Event Scepticism in South Korea”

Time and location: Wednesday 	28 January 2015, 3-4:30 pm.		 Room GR350*

The next edition of the Winter Olympic Games will take place in the South Korean district of Pyeongchang. When this sporting event was awarded to the East Asian country in 2011, Korean people and the media celebrated the IOC’s decision in unison. Recently, however, a sceptical view on hosting the large scale sporting competition is notably on the rise. It seems that the sports mega-event, which engenders tension rather than harmony, is no longer an unquestionably welcome occasion for a large number of the South Korean public. In order to understand the wide spread of mega-event scepticism, it is necessary to consider political and economic developments that South Korea has undergone over the last two decades: the maturation of political democracy and the enhancement of economic competence. 

#4 Dr Jayne Caudwell (University of Brighton)

“Everyday misogynies and sport”

Time and location: Wednesday 	18 February 2015, 3-4:30 pm.	Room GR350*

Rani Abraham’s disclosure to the media in May 2014 of Richard Scudamore’s ribald sexist e-mail commentary provides evidence of, and challenge to, the culture of misogyny within UK sport. Scudamore, Chief Executive of the English Premier League (EPL), exchanged titillating sexist jokes with his longstanding friend Nick West. West, a lawyer, works for DLA Piper and specializes in broadcasting. It is men like this that hold vast amounts of social and cultural power in British society, including sport. In this paper, I analyze a report by Dr Alison Phipps and Isabel Young on ‘Women students’ experiences of ‘lad culture’ in Higher Education’ in light of this incident.


# 5 Dr Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson (University of Lincoln)

“Listening to the sporting body:  auditory work and asthma experiences”

Time and location: Wednesday 	11 March 2015, 3-4:30 pm.	Room GR350*

Whilst there has been a burgeoning of interest in sporting and exercise embodiment in recent years, including more phenomenologically inspired sociological analyses, a sociology of the senses is a relatively recent innovation, particularly in the domain of physical cultures.  This provides an interesting new dimension to studies of sporting embodiment, focusing on the importance of the sensory elements of our ‘somatic work’, and analysing the ways in which we go about making sense of our senses within a socio-cultural and physical-cultural framework.  Drawing on the findings of two qualitative research projects, this paper addresses the lived experience of asthma in non-élite sports participants. Despite the prevalence of asthma and exercise-induced asthma/bronchoconstriction, there is a distinct lacuna in terms of qualitative research on asthma experiences, and specifically in relation to sports participation. Here, I focus on the aural dimension of asthma experiences in sport, examining two key elements: 1) asthma as ‘dys-ease’; and 2) auditory attunement and breath control.

*'GR' (Greenbank Building) is in purple near the top of the map:

http://www.uclan.ac.uk/visit/assets/preston_city_campus_map.pdf