Dr. Sarah K. Fields

Dr. Sarah K. Fields (fields.214@osu.edu) earned her B.A. in Psychology for Yale University, her J.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, her M.A. in American Studies from Washington State University, and her Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Iowa. Her interdisciplinary research examines how sport reflects and perpetuates American Society's values and beliefs. She is interested in the intersections of different aspects of U.S. culture with sport, such as gender, race, and law. Her work also considers how representations of sport in popular culture promote and defy traditional stereotypes. Her teaching reflects these interests: she has taught courses on race, gender, and sport in America; sports films; sports law; and will be teaching the history of women in sport as well as a Title IX seminar.

Her book Female Gladiators: Gender, Law, and Contact Sport in America examines how school age girls used the law to gain access to contact sports and the social backlash that makes girls in contact sport still a relative rarity. She has also published articles in Journal of Sport History; Journal of Sport Literature; World Leisure Journal; Culture, Sport and Society; and Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law. She also has a book on Title IX in the forthcoming Race and Sport in America (ed. Michael Lomax). Some of her current research projects include examining injuries in women's rugby and their effects on participation, the role of religion in sport in the Deep South, sport among girls in the Indian boarding schools, and the balance between the rights of privacy and the First Amendment for celebrity athletes.