Macintosh Conference

Trials and Triumphs: Historical Studies of Sport Through the Lens of the Black Canadian Athlete

Dr. Ornella Nzindukiyimana 

2024 Macintosh Sociology of Sport Day Conference
January 20, 2024 | 9am to 4pm                                                                      KHS 212, 28 Division St., Kingston ON

This year’s speaker is Dr. Ornella Nzindukiyimana, an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Kinetics at St. Francis Xavier University where she primarily teaches the historical foundations of sport and physical culture in Canada. She is a social historian with a background in Human Kinetics and earned a PhD in socio-cultural studies of sport from Western University. Dr. Nzindukiyimana studies 20th century and early 21st century contexts, focusing on how nationalism, colonialism, multiculturalism, immigration, along with the intersection of race, gender, class and other social categorizations have shaped Black peoples’ practices and experiences in what is currently Canada. Her socio-historical studies span sporting accounts of girls and women in Southern Ontario in the early 20th century to the contextualization of the Toronto Raptors’ 2019 National Basketball Association championship run. She has documented obscured histories in boxing, track and field, swimming, and baseball. She is developing more histories in those spaces and exploring surfing, basketball, and hockey, with particular interest in individuals and groups who challenged colonial, White supremacist, patriarchal, and capitalist forces in sport, who expanded what could be, and who inform a template for reimagining sport’s structure. Her keynote lecture for the conference is titled, “Trial and Triumphs: Historical Studies of Sport through the lens of the Black Canadian Athlete.” Advanced registration is required for both those wishing to attend online and those attending in person. Please register by January 15th, 2024.

Past Events

Saturday, January 28 2023 – 9am – 4pm

Anishinaabeg Ganandawisiwin – Resistance Strategies Against Embodied Settler Colonialism by Dr. Tricia McGuire-Adams

Macintosh Conference Poster 2023
Thursday, 27 January 2022 – 1 pm 

Biofeminisim: The Epistemic Politics of Inclusion in Women’s Sport by Dr. Madeleine Pape, University of Lausanne 

Friday, 12 February 2021 – 2:30 pm – 4:30 pm

Not just here to entertain: Past, present and future of athletic activism by Dr. Amira Rose Davis, Penn State

Macintosh Poster 2021
Donald Macintosh
About the Mackintosh Conference

Dr. Donald deFrayne Macintosh was a faculty member in the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies (formerly the School of Physical and Health Education) from 1965 until his death in 1994. Appointed Director of the School in 1965, he provided exceptional leadership for sixteen years before returning to teaching and research in 1981.

To honour his memory and contributions to the School, friends and colleagues  created the Donald Macintosh Memorial Visiting Scholar Fund, which is used to bring prominent scholars in the field of Sociology of Sport or Sport Policy to Queen’s University to provide the keynote lecture.

This one-day conference is normally held the last Saturday in January.