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The Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Research (CSSOR) welcomes submissions for the Robert K. Barney Graduate Student Essay Award.  This international prize is awarded annually to one graduate student (Masters or Doctoral candidates) who submits the most outstanding piece of original research in the area of Olympic studies.  We encourage submissions that examine the Olympic and Paralympic Movements from the fields of history, philosophy, management, sociology, communication, classics, literature, anthropology, cultural studies, economics, marketing, and law.  The winner of the contest will receive $250 and their essay will be forwarded to the Journal of Olympic Studies (www.olympicstudies.com) for peer review and possible publication.

Applicants must follow the below criteria to be considered for the award:

1.      The essay must be between 6,000 and 10,000 words in length, including notes.  An abstract of no more than 150 words should be included at the beginning of the article.
2.      The author must include a cover sheet detailing the author’s name, current email address, institution, advisor’s name, and degree program.
3.      Authors should follow the Chicago Manual of Style and manuscripts must be written in English.  If this is not the first language of the author, contributions should be checked for grammar and syntax, prior to submission, by a person fluent in academic English.
4.      The essay must be submitted as a Word document.

 Applications and questions should be sent to the Chair of the Award Committee, Toby Rider (trider@fullerton.edu).  The deadline for submissions is 5 May 2023.

Robert Knight Barney, PhD

The CSSOR Graduate Student Essay Award honors the profound contribution of Robert Knight Barney to the field of Olympic Studies.  Professor Barney, affectionately known as Bob, began researching the Olympic Games in the 1980s, when the subject area was largely in its infancy.  In 1989, Bob established the International Center for Olympic Studies at his home institution, the University of Western Ontario, and three years later created Olympika, the first peer reviewed academic journal focused solely on the Olympic Movement.  Through these two mediums and a biannual conference, Bob was able to stimulate and disseminate new research on the Games, all of which significantly aided the international growth of Olympic Studies in universities around the world.  Beyond this, Bob’s own historical research is revered.  He has produced seminal works on American and Canadian Olympic history, and has written several books on Olympic commercialism.  His groundbreaking monograph Selling the Five Rings, coauthored with Stephen Wenn and Scott Martyn, won the 2003 North American Society for Sports History book award.

In recognition of his achievements, Bob has received many other honors, including the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Order (1998), the North American Society for Sport History’s Recognition Award for “Exceptional Contributions to the Study of Sport History” (2003), and the International Society of Olympic Historians’ Pierre de Coubertin Award for “lifetime achievements in advancing Olympic scholarship” (2009).

The CSSOR wishes to acknowledge, in particular, Bob’s commitment to graduate studies and students.  While Bob was building an Olympic center and forging his own research agenda, he also encouraged and trained numerous Olympic scholars, many of whom are still actively working in the field all across the planet.  As a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Western Ontario, he has advised numerous graduate students with care and respect, eagerly passing on his own meticulous knowledge of research and boundless passion for academia.  In a wider sense, too, Bob has given many other graduate students a space to research, write, present, and publish their work.  We hope that the CSSOR Graduate Essay Award continues the work Bob started three decades ago, by promoting new and innovative writing from the next wave of Olympic scholars.

Professor Barney is still teaching, researching, and advising graduate students at the University of Western Ontario.