UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
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Item Wrestling With the Angels: Synthesizing Assemblage Theory and Conjunctural Analysis In Examining the Korean Sport Context(2022) Yang , Junbin; Andrews, David; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Given the increase of ambiguities and uncertainties in contemporary society in general—and in sport and physical culture in particular—it is essential to explore diversified elements simultaneously rather than fixate on only a single factor (Anderson, 2014; Horton, 2020; Law et al., 2014; Ryan, 2021). Accordingly, this thesis introduces Manuel DeLanda’s (2006a, 2006b, 2011, 2016) “Deleuzian-inspired” (Andrews, 2021b, p. 72) assemblage theory as a novel approach to understanding our complex society and its continuous transformations as “assemblages of assemblages” (DeLanda, 2016, p. 3). More importantly, just as DeLanda (2006, 2011, 2016) reorganized Deleuze’s notions when he suggested his own unique assemblage theory, I reconceptualize DeLanda’s assemblage theory by adopting certain vital concepts within conjunctural cultural studies, including the notions of conjuncture and articulation, to propose my own conjunctural analysis-based assemblage theory. Additionally, on a basis of my own version of assemblage theory, I then analyze three representative conjunctures that can be found within Korean history—a longstanding period of totalitarian regimes, the national economic crisis, and contemporary Korean society—in order to discern both dominant and overlooked assemblages within them as well as their endless mutations. Considering the conspicuous paucity of theoretical and conceptual discussions concerning an assemblage and assemblage theory despite the growing academic attention paid to these concepts (Dewsbury, 2011; Savage, 2020), my clarification and reinterpretation of DeLanda’s (2006, 2011, 2016) assemblage theory will make another meaningful contribution to the advancement of its theoretical and conceptual clarification. Analyzing three particular conjunctures within Korean history using assemblage theory will also ascertain the methodological and empirical potential of the concept by illuminating certain “more-than-human aspects of the socio-material world” (Müller & Schurr, 2016, p. 217) without adhering to anthropocentrism, thereby effectively bridging the scholarly gap that exists in the field of sport and physical culture, especially between the United States and South Korea (Andrews, 2019; Coakley, 2021; Tian & Wise, 2020). Ultimately, the critical engagement with and extension of DeLanda’s (2006, 2011, 2016) assemblage theory will provide a valuable opportunity to strengthen the architecture of the complex contextual relations that can critically delineate how society has been formed and how it has come into being by offering a fundamental addendum to the contextual cultural studies approach while also investigating the structure and function of contemporary sport as multifaceted assemblages (Andrews, 2019; King, 2005).Item FITTING IN: (RADICALLY) CONTEXTUALIZING THE CROSSFIT PHENOMENON(2018) Edmonds, Shaun E; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)CrossFit is a global fitness and cultural phenomenon whose ascendance over the past two decades has made it a dominant physical cultural practice, and a powerful influence within contemporary society. Through a multi-site and multi-method contextualization of CrossFit, this dissertation aims to critically explicate the power and power relations operating in, and through, the institutional, discursive, subcultural, and experiential dimensions of the CrossFit assemblage. This dissertation is presented through a collection of four academic journal articles prepared for publication in specific refereed journals. Chapter 1 uses the theory/method of articulation to radically contextualize CrossFit in, and through, the contemporary moment. Chapter 2 performs a critical discourse analysis on three key themes within CrossFit to explore how, and in what ways, biopower is operationalized and CrossFit subjectivities are created in and through CrossFit’s intertextual assemblage. Chapter 3 uses spatial analysis, participant interviews, and narrative vignettes to elucidate the ways in which a nostalgic reimagining of place influences the development of community, lifestyle, and personal health within a CrossFit Box. Chapter 4 provides a Deleuzian autoethnographic narrative that explores the process by which I move from insider to outsider status within CrossFit, and how that experience is co-constituted with other members of the CrossFit Box. While each chapter takes different theoretical, methodological, and empirical emphases, by taking a holistic approach to the CrossFit phenomenon this dissertation develops a nuanced and grounded explication of the CrossFit brand, and its entanglement with broader political, social, cultural, and economic forces and relations which constitute the contemporary moment.Item The Long Shot(2017) Zitta, Anthony; Norman, Howard; Creative Writing; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The following stories sew together parts and characters of Pennsylvania that can be neighbor to any, and with that, the reminder that family is the one thing everybody has to deal with and adapt to in order to survive.Item Reading the Defense: Conceptualizations of Literacy By College Football Student-Athletes(2013) Segal, Pamela H.; Turner, Jennifer D; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigated how college football student-athletes conceptualize the academic and athletic literacies they experience inside and outside the classroom. Participants included sophomore, junior, and senior football student-athletes who all attended a large public university in the Mid-Atlantic area. Three distinct research tools (questionnaire, focus group, individual interviews) were used in this study. The data was systematically coded and analyzed using qualitative content analysis procedures. This study demonstrated that the football student-athletes were able to demonstrate their understanding of literacy through use of the discourse of football. Moreover, the participants used their football discourse to express their thoughts, support their views, and analyze texts, all literacy skills valued in the college classrooms. Also, the football student-athletes perceived a connection between academic literacy and football literacy. The participants recognized literacy in football in reading the plays, communication between players and coaches and the media, and executing plays on the field. Several implications of this study are: the value of athletic literacy and football discourse in various settings, an improved connection between education and athletics, and the creation of future literacy programs to support the football student-athletes. This study is the first step in exploring the connection between athletic and academic literacy in order to improve the development of college football student-athletes. The results of this study compel us to rethink the stigma attached to football student-athletes in connection to their literacy, the locations of literacy events and the importance of literacy in football and school at the college level.Item Postcolonial Play: Encounters with Sport and Physical Culture in Contemporary India(2012) Maddox, Callie Elizabeth; Andrews, David L; Kinesiology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Drawing upon the idea that India and the West are "tethered geographies" (Reddy, 2006), this dissertation project explores how the ongoing and dialogic relationship between contemporary India and the West is represented, experienced, and contested in and through the realms of sport and physical culture. With escalating rates of economic growth, a rapidly expanding middle class, and increasing international political clout, India is emerging as a global power while simultaneously defining itself as a postcolonial nation against, and in tandem with, the West. Utilizing a fluid theoretical vocabulary (Andrews, 2008) and employing mixed qualitative research methods that include participant observation and interviews, I examine how various sites of physical culture serve as points of meaningful exchange between India and the West. This project presents a necessarily partial and contingent understanding of the chosen sites, tempered by considerable reflexivity and self-awareness, as my own Self is intricately enmeshed in this work. The four distinct, yet related, empirical studies that comprise this project thus focus on the following: 1) the embodiment of gendered nationalism and male power as manifested by the Cheer Queens, a cheerleading squad supporting the Pune Warriors cricket team in the Indian Premier League, and the Great Khali, a professional wrestler from India who performs internationally for World Wrestling Entertainment; 2) the city of Delhi's efforts to (re)create itself as a "world class" metropolis by hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games that resulted in spatial exclusion and the magnification of social inequalities; 3) changing body ideals amongst the young Indian middle class influenced by Western fitness practices and neoliberal discourses of healthism; 4) perceptions of authenticity held by Western tourists traveling to India to study Ashtanga yoga that reject the syncretic evolution of yoga and contribute to a construction of Otherness that continues to mark India and Indians as exotic, primitive, and poor. Also included is an "interlude" chapter centered on my personal experiences as a white, Western woman navigating the complexities of daily life in India and questioning the place of my own body within a context of fear, harassment, and assault.