Martial Arts Studies

In this episode, Emily Dobrich, Carlos Gutiérrez, and Martin Minarik join Lauren Miller in discussing their work on the MASA Board. Topics of interest include the association’s plans for supporting early career scholars, the benefits of having global representation within our association, and plans for promoting members’ public-facing projects, particularly those with applications for the broader martial arts community.

In this episode, Alex Channon, Wayne Wong, and George Jennings join Lauren Miller in discussing the formalization of our research network into an academic association. What started as a loose affiliation of likeminded scholars has blossomed into a robust academic organization, and becoming an association legitimizes the interdisciplinary field of martial arts. This conversation highlights the collaborative nature of our organization, its welcoming environment, and the benefits of membership in the association.

In this conversation, Dr. Marc Theeboom—professor of physical education and physiotherapy at VUB in Brussels—discusses the vast benefits of martial arts for youth development. Importantly, it is not that some martial arts have more benefits for children than do others, but that some pedagogical approaches are more beneficial than others. Theeboom explores the challenges of keeping martial traditions alive while simultaneously making martial arts fun and accessible for modern youth. He also points towards a future for martial arts studies that is holistic, collaborative, and interdisciplinary.

In this episode, three scholars from the varied disciplines of classics, history, and English come together to discuss the connections between Ancient Greek philosophers and modern-day BJJ and MMA. Foregrounded is the concept of agon, which is often translated as competition, but can perhaps be better conceptualized as striving for excellence. Perhaps most provocatively, this episode asks listeners to consider how the daily training regimes of the Ancient Greeks may have led to the creation of democracy as we know it today.

In this episode, Dr. Noah Johnson of Cornell College shares insights from his multi-sited ethnography on karate. His innovative approach to fieldwork took him to dojos in Okinawa as well as many different regions in the U.S. He concludes that the rituals of karate serve as a means for individuals to reinvent themselves. It also provides resources for individuals to protect themselves not just against physical threats, but against the threats of precarity and social uncertainty.