Call for Proposals, Special Issue of GLQ: The Athletic Issue
Jennifer Locke, Black/White (2009) This issue aims to collate interdisciplinary queer scholarship on sports and physical culture. This work should engage major issues in contemporary criticism – e.g. discourse on nationalism, autonomy and escape; neoliberalism esp.

My recent post on Louisa Necib has been the most read popular I've ever written on this blog. That's a great testament to the burst of interest this Women's World Cup has generated around the world. (France's semi-final game, for instance, attracted 4 million viewers in a country that has been very slow to adopt women's football).

Jennifer Doyle writing for FoxSoccer:

What do Germany, France, Brazil and England have in common, besides the fact they all made it to the quarterfinals of the Women's World Cup?
The national football associations of each country have all banned the women's game.
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From a Left Wing's Jennifer Doyle makes a good case against Tim Howard's rant following the Gold Cup medal ceremony, in which the American keeper remarked: "I think it was a f***ing disgrace that the entire post-match ceremony was in Spanish. You can bet your ass if we were in Mexico City it wouldn't be all in English":

For the record: the United States does not have an official language.

It's summer, you're bored, your favorite blogger isn't posting as frequently, and he has not yet published his magnum opus that will forever change your life. What do you do?

Rest easy we have some recommendations to make this June, July, and August bearable. Or, rather, adorable kitten LMAO-able.

In the same week that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced her Women's World Cup initiative, aimed at empowering girls and women around the world through sports, comes news that FIFA, the world governing body for soccer, has disqualified the Iranian women's team from their Olympic qualifying match for showing up to play wearing the hijab.

It's one of funnest and most satisfying sports within the sport of football: complaining about the tedious, predictable, if not nauseating commentary foisted on us by the networks. With barely disguised pleasure, we chat or tweet our criticisms of the uninvited guests who join our football watching party.

This has been a big week in football media, obviously. Richard Keys and Andy Gray were fired from/pressured to resign from Sky Sports for sexist comments about female linespersons caught on tape. I don't want to speak much more to the hypocrisy of traditional football media's open-mouthed shock reaction to sexism within its own ranks, an institution that has largely been completely dismissive of women's soccer (to the detriment of the development of the sport in England, as well as an echo of the sad legacy of the FA's relationship with women's football—see Dick, Kerr's Ladies).