Sports humanities topic highlights Institute for the Humanities spring event
Contact: John Burrow
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥斕一ㄖ辈 State鈥檚 Institute for the Humanities kicks off its spring 2021 lecture series in early February with a virtual event spotlighting sports humanities.
The Institute鈥檚 spring focus鈥斺淲hat are the Humanities Anyway?鈥濃攂egins Feb. 4 with an event featuring 桃花直播鈥檚 Greggory J. Twietmeyer, associate professor in 桃花直播鈥檚 Department of Kinesiology, and Scott Kretchmar, professor emeritus of the Department of Kinesiology at Pennsylvania State University.
Twietmeyer and Kretchmar will host a conversation titled 鈥淲hat are the Sports Humanities Anyway?鈥
To be streamed on the institute鈥檚 , the 3:30 p.m. event is free and open to the public.
鈥淪ports brings up huge issues that we should question and debate,鈥 said Julia Osman, institute director and associate professor of history.
鈥淚 first learned about the sports humanities while serving on a doctoral committee for a kinesiology student,鈥 said Osman, noting the conversation included sports ethics and the history of rules and parameters of games. She hopes this event shows that kinesiology 鈥済oes far beyond questions of 鈥榟ow to play the game.鈥欌
Twietmeyer said the intersection of the humanities and sports is deep, and 鈥渟ports, physical activity, play, games, dance and exercise are each deeply embedded in human culture.鈥
鈥淪ports are a set of human conventions, traditions and institutions. As such, every place they are found, they are laden with meaning, such as spiritual, ideological and cultural content,鈥 said Twietmeyer.
鈥淪ports regularly exhibit and lay bare both humanity鈥檚 potential for greatness鈥攂eauty, grace, self-sacrifice, tenacity, etc.鈥攁s well as our follies and sins鈥攋ealousy, betrayal, hatred, cheating, hubris, etc. 鈥楽port鈥 is a ubiquitous aspect of human culture, and therefore deserves serious attention from humanists,鈥 he explained.
Twietmeyer earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree from Michigan鈥s Concordia University Ann Arbor and his master鈥s degree in sport management from the University of Michigan. He earned his Ph.D. at Penn State, where Kretchmar served as his advisor.
Kretchmar鈥檚 research focuses on the evolution of play and its role in human development. 鈥淕ames are artificial and functional in many of the same ways that language is,鈥 Kretchmar said. 鈥淭here was a time when our ancestors were without either one, without grammatical languages鈥nd without formal games.聽Thus, a question presents itself.聽What intellectual capabilities allowed our ancestors to invent and use these two important elements of culture? How did our ancestors鈥 invention of games, in particular, improve their fitness in a Darwinian sense?鈥
Kretchmar hopes the audience learns that 鈥渄iscussion about sport, exercise, health and competition will be incomplete without contributions from history, philosophy, literature and other research domains in the humanities.鈥
As part of 桃花直播鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences, the Institute for the Humanities promotes research, scholarship and creative performances in the humanistic disciplines and raises their visibility, both within 桃花直播 State University and the wider community. The institute is active on social media on Instagram @msstatehumanities, Twitter @Humanities_桃花直播 and Facebook @msu.humanities.institute.
桃花直播鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences includes more than 5,200 students, 323 full-time faculty members, nine doctoral programs, 14 masters programs, and 27 undergraduate academic majors offered in 14 departments.聽It also is home to the most diverse units for research and scholarly activities, including natural and physical sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and the humanities.聽For more about the College of Arts and Sciences or the Institute for the Humanities visit or .
桃花直播 is 桃花直播鈥檚 leading university, available online at聽.