Introduction Greetings from the road! If all has gone according to plan I am currently in the UK, and probably on a train somewhere between London and Cardiff, headed to the 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference. Since I will only... Continue Reading →
Introduction Greetings from the road! I am currently undertaking some last minute preparations and then heading over to Cardiff University for the 2016 Martial Arts Studies Conference. I am looking forward to getting together with old friends,... Continue Reading →
“When there is a fake—hippopotamus, dinosaur, sea serpent—it is not so much because it would not be possible to have the real equivalent, but because the public is meant to admire the perfection of the fake and... Continue Reading →
***This is the second half of our exploration of lightsaber combat as a martial art. Reader who have not yet read Part I are strongly encouraged to do so before going on. In the last essay we considering some of... Continue Reading →
Introduction “Martial arts studies” is an eponymously named research area. This fact seems so obvious as to require no further exploration. But is it really so? Why does no one write about “professional combat sports studies,” “kung fu studies,” “Budo... Continue Reading →
Paul Bowman and I are happy to announce that the first issue of the new interdisciplinary journal Martial Arts Studies has arrived. It is free to download, read or share by anyone with an internet connection. Best of... Continue Reading →
Introduction: Pilgrimage in the Martial Arts My friends can attest that I keep threatening to write a paper on the growth of “pilgrimage” in the modern martial arts community. In the current era this often takes the form... Continue Reading →
The following is guest post by Sixt Wetzler, dvs-Kommission Kampfkunst & Kampfsport (sixt.wetzler@gmail.com). While Martial Arts Studies is, by its very nature, an international and interdisciplinary subject, we generally see relatively little discussion of the scholarship that is happening in... Continue Reading →
Men fighting men to determine worth (i.e., masculinity) excludes women as completely as the female experience of childbirth excludes men….The female boxer violates this stereotype and cannot be taken seriously—she is parody, she is cartoon, she is monstrous. Had... Continue Reading →
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