Sport Literature: Body, Society, Self

This Research & Knowledge Exchange Doctoral Project brief summarises our priority areas of research interest under the heading of: Sport Literature: Body, Society, Self.

We welcome all research degree applications aligned with and in response to this brief.

Despite sometimes going underacknowledged critically, sport was a central subject of twentieth-century literature. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, Marianne Moore, Richard Ford, Nick Hornby, David Foster Wallace, and others feature sport prominently in their bibliographies. This continues to the present day with Emily Nemens’ The Cactus League being named one of the best books of 2020 and new sport literature focused journals (or special editions) launching nearly every year (Hobart, Clinch, The Twin Bill, W&S, etc).  There is also a steady stream of non-fiction, including memoirs like Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Katie Arnold’s Running Home, or Angie Abdou’s Home Ice; cultural analyses like Thomas Page McBee’s Amateur; and critical writing, like Abdou’s Writing the Body in Motion. Sport continues to be a core subject in contemporary literature, with writers using it to explore issues such as class, gender, race, identity, mental health, and physical health, among others.  

This proposed PhD will expand the current scholarship on these topics and can either be critical or creative practice based, though the latter is preferred.

Projects deriving from this brief are expected to sit within the Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy and the following department.

All successful research degree project proposals must emphasise a clear alignment between the project idea and our Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy.