This symposium aims to illuminate the ways sports at times facilitates public conversations on past and present societal conditions, whether it is how sports reveal broader issues about culture, identity, or history. The speakers will focus on several questions: How do sports provide a space for publicly engaging in “difficult” conversations about issues affecting U.S. society? In what ways have athletes sought to create such space to engage societal concerns as they impact lives on or away from fields of play? How has the work of historians engaged the public about the ways sports reveal/unveil such broader concerns?
View the full schedule of panels here: https://hri.illinois.edu/events/sporting-publics
