WEST LIBERTY – For the second year in a row, West Liberty University hosted the Sport Literature Association’s annual conference, which attracts participants from around the world. Presenters for the conference, held virtually June 23-26, came from Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, New Zealand, Poland, the United Kingdom and all time zones in the United States. United.

The virtual conference was facilitated by WLU English professor Jeremy Larance, who is also the university’s deputy rector for academic innovation and strategic planning.

“I had the pleasure of hosting the 38th Annual Sport Literature Association Conference for the second year in a row, in a virtual format that allowed anyone, regardless of travel restrictions in various countries, to participate. . said Larance.

Professors, creative writers, historians and journalists were in attendance, according to Larance. Articles and readings were in the field of sports literature: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, theater or film.

This year’s keynote speaker was Janice Forsyth, a member of the Fisher Cree First Nation and Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Indigenous Studies at Western University in London, Ont. His research focuses on the relationships between Indigenous settlers in Canada as told through the prism of sport.

Its 2020 monograph, “Reclaiming Tom Longboat: Indigenous Self-Determination in Canadian Sport”, won the 2021 North American Society for Sport History Monographs Book Award.

The Sport Literature Association is an international organization dedicated to the study of sport in literature and culture. Started in the 1980s, the organization now has several hundred members around the world and each summer sponsors an annual conference in a different location in North America.