Global Football: History, Gender, Nation

This conference will focus on critical analyses of soccer/football in a global context. The conference takes place in advance of the 2010 World Cup, which is being held for the first time in Africa. A game played around the world by males and females of all ages, soccer is also a multi-million dollar business, a site of nationalism, the inspiration for ethnic and class violence, and the subject of rich scholarly analyses.

The conference will bring together scholars and noted football writers working in a range of interdisciplinary projects who offer critical appraisal of how soccer shapes and has shaped social, political and economic relations, in Canada and globally, including Simon Kuper, John Doyle, David Goldblatt and Sid Lowe.

The conference is particularly interested in hearing from scholars who offer historical analyses of the game, who interrogate the gendered dynamics of it, and who explore how soccer engages nation-states and transnational flows of players and capital. Conference presenters will include graduate students and established researchers.

The conference will open the evening of Thursday, Dec. 3, with the Avie Bennett Annual Speaker Series titled "Football North of 49: Canada and the Global Game".

The intended audience for this conference will be from research communities (graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, faculty members) in Canada and internationally.

It is sponsored by the Department of History, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, the Avie Bennett Historica Chair, Founders College and the Centre for Feminist Research.

For more information or to register contact Kathryn McPherson at 416-736-2100 ext. 66925 or kathryn@yorku.ca.