Russell Field, PhD

Biography

A historian interested in the socio-cultural study of sport and physical activity, Dr. Russell Field's two mainlines of research involves the examination of primarily historical global sporting events as sites of resistance and protest and using the tools of people’s history and history from below to broaden our understanding of the lived experience of sport.

Education

  • PhD, University of Toronto, Graduate Program in Exercise Sciences (2008)
  • A., University of Toronto, Department of History (2000)
  • B.A., Queen’s University (1991)
  • A., Queen’s University (1989)

Research summary

Dr. Field's research and service contributions reflect an interest in sport and the visual, including film and graphic representations to explore the socio-cultural history of sport and physical activity and the lived experience of its participants.

Recent publications

Field, Russell. A Night at the Gardens: Class, gender, and respectability in 1930s Toronto. (University of Toronto Press, 2023).

Field, Russell, (Ed.). Winters of Discontent: The Winter Olympics and half a century of protest and resistance in/through sport (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, scheduled for 2024).

Forsyth, Janice, Christine O’Bonsawin, Russell Field, and Murray Phillips. (Eds.) Decolonizing Sport (Winnipeg: Fernwood, 2023, in press). 

Poplawski, Brent and Russell Field, “The Onset and Impact of Early Sport Specialization among Hockey Players from Winnipeg,” Journal of Emerging Sport Studies, 2023, in press.

Ross, MacIntosh et al. “A Call to Boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games and Establish Minimum Human Rights Standards for Olympic Hosts” [Critical Commentary]. Journal of Emerging Sport Studies, 2021.

Highlights

Current research funding

  • “A People’s History of Sport in Canada,” Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant, + Sport Canada Sport Participation Research Initiative (role: PI), 2022-27
  • “‘Every American overseas is supposed to teach baseball:’ The Peace Corps, sport, and international development in the Cold War, 1961-69,” UM/SSHRC Explore Grants Program (role: PI), 2023-24