Raglan resident Holly Thorpe, a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Leisure Studies at the University of Waikato, is one of two academics selected for the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Award in New Zealand Studies, a semester-long teaching and research position based at Georgetown University’s Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies in Washington, DC. Holly will research children and young persons’ involvement in extreme sports, while teaching an undergraduate course on sport in New Zealand society. Art interventions, freedom of expression and extreme sports are just some of the fields of research for ten recipients of exchange awards to the United States of America for the 2012 under Fulbright Scholarships. The recipients of various awards under Fulbright New Zealand’s senior scholar programme will research and/or lecture in their specialist fields at universities of their choice across the US.
The Fulbright award will turn Raglan’s Holly Thorpe into sporting ambassador with American students set to get a glimpse into the Kiwi passion for sport and how it’s made us who we are today.
Dr Thorpe will spend six months from August next year at Georgetown teaching a course on sport in New Zealand society, and collecting data for a research project on the experiences of youth and children in extreme sports in both New Zealand and the US.
Dr Thorpe is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education’s Sport and Leisure Studies Department, and has published widely on aspects of sport and youth culture. As a snowboarder herself, she has a special interest in extreme sports, and has published multiple books and articles on the subject.
New Zealand Insight
“It’s very exciting,” says Dr Thorpe. “Georgetown is a prestigious university with the only programme in Australian and New Zealand Studies in the country. My course will provide students with an insight into New Zealand society through my particular field of expertise, that is, the sociology and history of sport.”
The US students will be introduced to iconic figures such as Sir Edmund Hillary and A.J. Hackett, and learn about the impact on New Zealand society of sporting controversies ranging from the 1981 Springbok Tour to the Adidas All Blacks haka advertisement.
“I’ll also introduce the students to netball and the Rugby World Cup – sports and events a lot of Americans have no idea about,” says Dr Thorpe. “The Fulbright scholarships are all about building connections between countries, so the students will learn about New Zealand society through the vehicle of sport, and for me it will be interesting to see how they do things differently both at a US university, and also in terms of extreme sport participation.”
In 2009, Dr Thorpe was the recipient of a Leverhulme Visiting Scholar Fellowship, and spent nine months at the University of Brighton in the UK where she completed a book on snowboarding, focusing on social theory, physical youth culture, gender and the body and embodiment.