“Field of Dreams”: The Popular Culture of Sports

PopCRN (the Popular Culture Network) is celebrating the games of the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris with a free online conference exploring of the wide world of sports. The conference will be held on Thursday 25th-Friday 26th July 2024.

Our sports, both competitive and recreational, have the power to both connect and divide us. Whether its chasing medals at the international level, or a game of backyard tennis, the thrill of jumping from great heights to the cerebral challenge of chess, humans seem to have an unending capacity to challenge both themselves and others to greater achievement. This conference aims to interrogate the popular culture aspects of sports in all its forms.

                                                                                                                                            Keynote

                                                                                                                     Associate Professor Adele Pavlidis

                                                                                                                       Griffith University & ARC Fellow

We welcome papers from researchers across the academic spectrum and encourage papers from postgraduate researchers and early career researchers. Papers from this conference will have the opportunity to be in a special edition of Sport in Society (Q1 - Scimago)

Topics can examine any topic relating to sport; here are some great sports quotes and ideas to inspire you:

• “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can't hit what the eyes can't see.” - Sports rhetoric
• “Some of the people are on the pitch. They think it’s all over. It is now, it’s four!” – the thrill of winning.
• "They were calling us traitors. There was fighting above the water and fighting beneath the water." – The conflation of politics and sports
• "The dirtiest race in history" ­– Drugs and cheating in sport.
• Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” – What it takes to achieve in sport
• Once you become an Olympic champion, you are expected to win all the time. – The social pressures of being a winner.
• If you build it, they will come – Faith and success in sport.
• You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take – Risk taking in sport.
• Nobody roots for Goliath – The underdog and popular support.
• Goaltending is a normal job, sure. How would you like it in your job if every time you made a small mistake, a red light went on over your desk and 15,000 people stood up and yelled at you? – The relationship between sports fans and players.
• When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win – How winners and loses are depicted in the media.
• Age is no barrier. It's a limitation you put on your mind – Is sport a young person’s game?
• You’ll never walk alone – the emotive power of sports anthems
• Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together – bodies of differences and inclusivity in sport
• A league of their own – Gender and sport
• It's never over until we're shaking hands at the net – Good sportspersonship in sport
• We actually got the winning goal three minutes from the end but then they scored – Perspectives on performance in sportNobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein – social stereotypes and sportspeople.
• The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever – The beauty of nature and sport.
• People are gonna believe what they want to believe. And like I said before, I really don't give a damn – The sports villain and public opinion.
• I don't like to lose -- at anything -- yet I've grown most not from victories, but setbacks – The narrative of overcoming obstacles in sport.
• Riding a race bike is an art - a thing that you do because you feel something inside – the passion for sport
• Whoever wins, wins: it's archery. It's not life and death – The moral sportsperson
• Whenever a team loses, there’s always a row at half time but when they win, it’s an inspirational speech ­– the role of the coach in sport.
• It’s not about the bike – what it takes to become a sportsperson.
• When I wasn't at school, I was in the surf – the sporting lifestyle.

Please email abstracts (200 words) to popcrn@une.edu.au by 30th April 2024. Please include your name, affiliation, email address, title of paper, short biography, (100 words), orcid ID (if available) and google scholar link (where available). Registration is free and presenters will be automatically registered.