Roundtable: Can Victory Lead the People? From World Cup 1998 to Paris 2024

This event will be held in English.

To be notified of upcoming Paris Center events, we invite you to sign up for our twice monthly newsletter.

–

Sport and society have had a complex relationship in France over the past quarter century, which will come to a head at the upcoming Paris Olympics. How will hosting the Games perpetuate or transform recent socio-political dynamics?

Evan Brown, Laurent Dubois, Lindsay Krasnoff, Piara Powar, and Frank A. Guridy will lend their expertise in history, politics, and global sports dynamics to discuss the politics of racism, the legacies of empire, and France’s role in global sport systems. The discussion will offer insights into the complex interplay of sport, culture, and society from leading voices in the field.

Speakers

Evan DiPrete Brown is a PhD candidate in US history in the Columbia University Department of History. He researches the history of sport, especially as it concerns labor, political economy, and social movements. His recent article “Playing on Grassroots: The Anti-Apartheid Movement, Arthur Ashe, and the Sport Boycott” considers the problems and possibilities of sport politics. Website

Laurent Dubois is the John L. Nau III Bicentennial Professor in the History & Principles of Democracy and the Academic Director of the Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia. He is a specialist on the history and culture of the Atlantic world who studies the Caribbean (particularly Haiti). His work on soccer includes Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France (University of California Press, 2010), The Language of the Game: How to Understand Soccer (2018), and writings for The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times and Sports Illustrated. Website

Dr. Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff is a historian, speaker, and consultant expert in sports diplomacy with a specialty in French-U.S. relations. Author of Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA (Bloomsbury, 2023), “Views From the Embassy: The Role of the U.S. Diplomatic Community in France, 1914,” (U.S. Department of State, 2014), and The Making of Les Bleus: Sport in France, 1958-2010 (Lexington Books, 2012), her work on global sports has appeared with outlets like TIME, CNN International, The Athletic, The New Yorker. Outside her consulting practice, she directs the FranceAndUS project and is an Adjunct Instructor at New York University’s Tisch Institute for Global Sport. Website

A long-standing campaigner for equality, Piara Powar is a former chief executive of Kick It Out and is the current executive director of anti-discrimination and social inclusion network Fare. These organizations specialize in countering inequality and exclusion in football through co-ordinated action and common efforts.

Frank A. Guridy (moderator) is the Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies. He is also Professor of History and the Executive Director of the Eric H. Holder Initiative for Civil and Political Rights at Columbia. He is an award-winning historian whose recent research focuses on sport history, urban history, and the history of American social movements. His latest book, The Sports Revolution: How Texas Changed the Culture of American Athletics (University of Texas Press, 2021) explored how Texas-based sports entrepreneurs and athletes from marginalized backgrounds transformed American sporting culture during the 1960s and 1970s, the highpoint of the Black Freedom and Second-Wave feminist movements. Guridy is also a leading scholar of the Black Freedom Movement in the United States and the Caribbean.

Series

En-jeux examines factors at play for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The Columbia Global Paris Center has invited academics and authors to share their perspectives on the Games. Join us for a screening of Visions of Eight (1973) with Columbia Professor Richard Peña; a roundtable discussion with sports experts on sport and society; and a book talk with Valentine Goby, author of Murène, discussing the origins of para sports with Laurence Marie.

Organizer

The Columbia Global Paris Center addresses pressing global issues that are at the forefront of international education and research: agency and gender; climate and the environment; critical dialogues for just societies; encounters in the arts; and health and medical science.

Columbia Global brings together major global initiatives from across the university to advance knowledge and foster global engagement. Those initiatives include the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination. Our mission is to address complex global challenges through groundbreaking scholarly pursuits, leadership development, cutting-edge research, and projects that aim for social impact. Our long-term goal is to reimagine the university’s role in society as not only a nexus for learning and intellectual exploration but also as a catalyst for creativity and impact locally, regionally, and globally.

Venue

Nestled in the Montparnasse district, Reid Hall hosts several Columbia University initiatives: the Columbia Global Paris Center, the Institute for Ideas and Imagination, Columbia Undergraduate Programs, M.A. in History and Literature, and the GSAPP Shape of Two Cities Program. This unique combination of resources is enhanced by our global network whose mission is to expand the University’s engagement the world over through educational programs, research initiatives, regional partnerships, and public events.

This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.

The views and opinions expressed by speakers and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policies or positions of the Columbia Global Paris Center or its affiliates.