Roundtable on Race, Sports Music Traditions, and Fan Activism

The Department of Radio-Television-Film and the Butler School of Music co-present:

“Roundtable on Race, Sports Music Traditions, and Fan Activism”

RSVP to Attend Zoom Webinar

This virtual roundtable conversation will bring together leading scholars on the topics of race and sports, college fight songs, and fan activism, to contextualize ongoing debates about racism in sports culture. Here at The University of Texas, our own school song has become a site of increased controversy and debate, with many calling for its removal and some staunchly defending it as a central tradition for students and alumni alike. The panelists will offer historical context for racism and activism in sports as well as sports fan culture, consider the significance of participatory rituals like singing to sporting events, and address how students, athletes, and sports fans navigate their relationship to problematic institutional traditions and iconography.

Moderators:

Hannah Lewis, Associate Professor in the Butler School of Music

Suzanne Scott, Associate Professor in Radio-Television-Film

Panelists:

Amira Rose Davis is an Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at Penn State University where she specializes in 20^th Century American History with an emphasis on race, gender, sports, and politics. She is currently the 2021-2022 Harrington Faculty Fellow at the University of Texas-Austin where she is finishing up her first book, “Can’t Eat a Medal”: The Lives and Labors of Black Women Athletes in the Age of Jim Crow (UNC Press). Her work has appeared in scholarly journals including the Radical History Review, Journal of African American History, and Modern American History as well as popular outlets such as The Washington Post and Slate. Recently named a Mellon Emerging Faculty Leader by the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, Davis also provides sports commentary for public venues such as NPR, ESPN, and BBC and serves on the advisory board of the Jackie Robinson Museum and the Arthur Ashe Legacy Foundation. Davis is also the co-host of the Feminist sports podcast, Burn it All Down and the host of Season 3 of American Prodigy from Bluewire.

Lori Kido Lopez is Professor in Media and Cultural Studies and Director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research examines the way that minority groups such as women, racial minorities, and queer communities use media in the fight for social justice. She is interested in struggles to improve the representation of disenfranchised groups within mainstream media, as well as the different ways that grassroots/activist media, digital media, and consumer culture all can play a role in transforming identities and communities. Her book Asian American Media Activism: Fighting for Cultural Citizenship (2016, NYU Press) examines the efforts of Asian Americans to impact the way that their community has been represented. Using ethnography, interviews, and archival research, it examines the work of traditional activists who have worked since the 1960s to protest and reform imagery, but also contextualizes the kinds of media activism undertaken by advertising agencies, fans, YouTube artists, and bloggers. She is dedicated to the blending of scholarship and activism, and highly value collaborations between community organizations and academics. She is the editor of the edited collection Race and Media: Critical Approaches (2020, NYU Press) , and her newest book, Micro Media Industries: Hmong American Media Innovation in the Diaspora (2021, Rutgers University Press), examines Hmong Americans and the culturally specific ways that they are participating in the production and consumption of digital media, particularly considering the gendered dimensions of Hmong media cultures.

John Michael McCluskey serves as both the Chair of the Edith Lester Harbin Department of Music and as Associate Professor of Music at Shorter University, where he teaches courses on western music history, world musics, and other music topics. Dr. McCluskey’s research focuses on music and sport, but his interests cover a broad base, including music and religious experience, commercial music, and music and videogames. He has published in the journals American Music and the Journal of the Society for American Music. He has additionally presented his work at a number of international, national, and regional (ethno)musicological conferences. He holds his PhD and MA in Musicology and Ethnomusicology from the University of Kentucky.