Dr. Matthew McNiece, associate professor of history and political science at Howard Payne University, recently received word that his paper, “Murderball in the Classroom: Students, Sport and the Perspectives of Social Science,” will be published in the first edition of the International Journal of Sport and Society.
McNiece submitted the paper following his presentation at the International Conference on Sport and Society in Vancouver, Canada, March 8-10. This is the first time he has been published in a peer-review journal.
Murderball is a documentary film released in 2005 about quadriplegic rugby, a sport played in the Paralympic Games. This spring, McNiece made this video a cornerstone of his HPU special studies class “Sports in Contemporary American Culture.” He then had his students examine one of nine theoretical approaches to looking at social sciences.
“This paper examines undergraduate students’ application of these perspectives to Murderball-as-text, and how it challenges or alters their assumptions about the social scientific study of sport and culture,” McNiece said. “It emphasizes the criticality of studying this nexus not just as fans, nor even as general scholars, but moreover as social scientists. Such an approach is, like Murderball itself, equal parts challenging, provocative, and, ultimately, satisfying.”
McNiece joined the HPU faculty in the 2004-05 academic school year and then returned to campus in the fall of 2007. He holds the Walter M. and Evalynn Burress Chair of Genealogy and American History. An HPU alumnus, he earned the Bachelor of Science degree in history through the Douglas MacArthur Academy of Freedom in 2003. He then went on to earn the Master of Arts degree in social sciences from the University of Chicago in 2004 and the Doctor of Philosophy degree in American history from Texas Christian University in 2008.
In 2008, with HPU professor and Dean of the School of Humanities Dr. Justin D. Murphy, McNiece co-authored a book, entitled Military Aircraft, 1919-1945: An Illustrated History of Their Impact. McNiece was also a contributing author to ABC-CLIO’s Encyclopedia of World War I and World War II.
