Seminar Series

We run a regular programme of seminar series in partnership with the Institute of Historical Research. You can find a list of upcoming speakers and seminars on the IHR website here, where you can also register for individual sessions in order to receive a Zoom link (this will arrive on the day of the seminar). 

Seminars take place at 6:00pm, with one hour for speakers to deliver their paper and answer questions from the audience.

If you haven't already checked them out, we do publish the seminars as podcasts - so if you are unable to attend, or wish to revisit the topics at any time, you can listen any time on Soundcloud. Click here or search for ‘BSSH London’ to see all available episodes.

For enquiries or to submit a paper contact the Secretary of the BSSH at geoffreylevett@me.com.

Winter 2022 seminars

7th February – Alexander Jackson (National Football Museum), “He has kept the game going:” The professional footballer on the English Home Front in the First World War

21st February – Barbara Horley (De Montfort University), “I have had two thrills today. One racing at Newmarket this afternoon. The other here at speedway. And this is by far the greater”. Why did speedway become so phenomenally popular in the late 1930s and 40s?

7th March – Dil Porter, B.S. Johnson: 1960s match-reporter and football man

21st March – Jon Hughes, 'We met the most serious opposition in the Ministry of Propaganda': Borders, Limits, and Summits in the German-British mountain film Der Berg ruft / The Challenge (1938)

Autumn 2021 seminars

25th October - Dr Iain Adams (Independent scholar), ''Take the Cleats': Tug of War and American ’fin de siècle’ exceptionalism'

8th November - Dr Malcolm Maclean (University of Gloucester), 'Settler sport/Indigenous worlds: epistemicide, coloniality, and Rugby Union in Aotearoa/New Zealand’

22nd November - Lauren Beatty (Glasgow Caledonian University),  'Using Oral History to uncover women’s hidden experiences of playing golf in Scotland c.1945-1995’

6th December - Heather Dichter (DMU), 'The Berlin Wall & the End of Free Travel in International Sport’