Samuel M. Clevenger, Ph.D.

Samuel M. Clevenger joined Towson University’s Department of Kinesiology in 2018. Prior to his arrival at Towson, he taught at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research centers on the historical study of sport and physical culture and using the tools of historical analysis to interrogate contemporary issues related to sport, recreation, and leisure, with particular attention to the legacies of Western colonialism and the contemporary crisis of climate change. Dr. Clevenger is also interested in the intersections of sport and sound, and the promotion of inclusivity and multicultural perspectives in sport-related higher education. As of 2024, Dr. Clevenger is currently completing monograph projects on the role of sport, recreation, and leisure in the history of the international garden city town planning movement, and the cultural and colonial politics of "invention narratives" in sport history.

Select Publications

• Posbergh, A., and S. M. Clevenger (2022). Beyond Caster as object? Examining media constructions of Caster Semenya through decolonial thinking. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health. DOI: 10.1080/2159676X.2022.2086164
• Clevenger, S. M., and D. L. Andrews (2021). Regenerating the ‘Stock’ of the Empire: Biopower and Physical Culture in English Garden City Planning Discourse, 1898-1903. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 38(2-3), 282-301.                                DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2021.1891531
• Clevenger, S. M., O. Rick., and J. Bustad. (2020). Critiquing Anthropocentric Media Coverage of the COVID-19 Sport ‘Hiatus’. International Journal of Sport Communication, 13(3), 559-565. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsc.2020-0239
• Clevenger, S. M. (2020). Transtemporal sport histories; Or, rethinking the ‘invention’ of American basketball. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, 23(5), 959-974. DOI: 10.1080/17430437.2019.1597855
• Clevenger, S. M. (2017). Sport history, modernity and the logic of coloniality: A case for decoloniality. Rethinking History, 21(4), 586-605.                                                                DOI: 10.1080/13642529.2017.1326696
• Clevenger, S.M., & DeLuca, J.R. (2023). Contemplative pedagogy and decentering whiteness in sport management education. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education, 33, 100461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2023.100461

Research

• History of Sport and Physical Culture
• Sport and Western Colonialism
• Sport, Physical Culture, and the (Built) Environment

Courses Taught 

• KNES 441 Women, Gender and Sport
• KNES 345 Seminar & Field Experience in Sport Management 
• KNES 353 Sport & Society 
•  KNES 251 History of Sport in America
• KNES 460 Cultural Economy of Sport
• KNES 351 Philosophy: The Sport Experience