Welcome to the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports.

The Stark Center is a research center housed within the Department of Kinesiology & Health Education.  We are a unique combination of library, archive, and gallery/exhibit space.

An Unexpected Pleasure: Kissing the Ground in Equilibrium—A Search for the Origins of the Pushup

One of the things I enjoy most about the Stark Center are the requests we often get for information about some aspect of the history of physical culture. Most of those requests are handled by our incredible Stark Center staff but every now and then a request will make its way to my inbox and I find myself so intrigued that I end up doing research that wasn’t planned because the question made me curious too. This past Sunday was one of those days. I got an unexpected email from Denis Blinov, whom I’ve never met. “May I ask if you...

A photograph of the Battle Cast, the Boxer at Rest

The Boxer at Rest

Last summer, I made the decision to expand my academic and professional horizons by pursuing a master’s degree in Sports Management at the University of Texas. The opportunity to learn from leading scholars in the field was too exciting to pass up—even if I do skew the average age of my cohort a bit higher. This semester, I’m enrolled in Ethics in Sport, a course taught by Dr. Charles Stocking. For those unfamiliar with his work, Dr. Stocking is an accomplished scholar who specializes in the history and philosophy of the body, sport, and physical culture from Ancient Greece to the present....

Browse the Complete Journal Archive

The Stark Center features collections from around the world related to all aspects of physical culture and sports.

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