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University College 
Department of Health and Exercise Studies

Rasul Mowatt PhD

RM

Interim Department Head | College of Natural Resources Department Head and Professor

View CV 

Bio

Education

Ph.D., Philosophy in Leisure Behavior, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (2006)

M.S., Park and Natural Resource Management, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (2002)

B.S. History, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (1995)

 

Current Research Focus

  • American Studies: social justice social justice (injustice and violence), the sociology of leisure (leisure theory/history/philosophy; public space; and, tourism), cultural studies (visual and media inquiry), and critical pedagogy (historical analysis; social critique; and critical action)
  • Geography: geographies of Race (critical cultural geography; urban geography; Black geographies), geographies of violence and threat (landscapes and memorials of lynching and race riots; performance of White power) and the animation of public space (urban anthropology; political access, restriction, and use)

 

In the News

“The Monument to Patience,” featured in Picturing Black History project from Ohio State University in a collaboration of getty images and Origins (2022)

Interchange – The State Made Visible: On the Geographies of Threat and the Production of Violence (Apple Podcasts) 2021

“The Forgotten ‘Wade-ins’ that Transformed the US”, featured on Vox’s Missing Chapter (2020)

“The Inequality of Summer Leisure”, featured in The Atlantic (2020)

“Reflections on the 2018 Keynote Panel, ‘The Implications of Race on Play for Youth of Color”, US Play Coalition Annual Conference (2018)

“Why I Called The Murder of Richard Collins III a Lynching,” The Nation (2017)

“Standing Room Only: WFHB’s Backyard Conversation on Race and Privilege” WFHB Community Radio (2016)

“The Matter of Black Lives on Interchange in 2015” – PRX (2015)

 

Featured Publications

The Geographies of Threat and the Production of Violence: The State and City Between Us – Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, September 30, 2021.

“A People’s Future of Leisure Studies: Leisure with Enemy Under COVID-19”, Leisure Sciences, 2020.

“A People’s History of Leisure Studies: The Great Race, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Forest Service,” Journal of Parks and Recreation Administration, 2020.

“A People’s History of Leisure Studies: Where the White Nationalist Are,” Leisure Studies, 2019.

“A People’s History of Leisure Studies: Old Knowledge, New Knowledge and The Philadelphia Negro as a Foundational Text”, International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure, 2018.

 

Affiliations

The Academy of Leisure Sciences, President

Leisure Sciences, An Interdisciplinary Journal, Co-Editor-in-Chief

Indiana Supreme Court, Commission on Race and Gender Fairness

Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers, Member and Editorial Board Member of the Southeastern Geographer Journal

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Funded: “Unmasked: The Anti-Lynching Exhibits of 1935 and Methods of Public Community Remembrance in Indiana,” Project Proposal Team

 

Groups

Groups