Michelle Sikes | Penn State College of Health and Human Development

Publication

Michelle Sikes

Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, African Studies, and History

Summary Statement

Michelle Sikes researches sport and politics in African history with focus on Kenya and South Africa.

Department

Kinesiology - KINES
Graduate Faculty

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Education

Ph.D., Economics and Social History, University of Oxford, Lincoln College, Oxford, UK
M.Sc., Economic and Social History, University of Oxford, Lincoln College, Oxford, UK
B.S. (Hons), Mathematical Economics (Minor in Health Policy & Administration), Wake Forest University

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Phone

814-865-8697

mxs1600@psu.edu

Office Address

268B Rec Hall
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA 16802

Additional Websites

African Studies Program profile

Publication

Affiliations

Center for the Study of Sports in Society at Penn State

Specializations

Sport in African history
International sport history
Sport, gender, race, and ethnicity
Sport diplomacy and politics

Publications

Edited Volumes

Michelle M. Sikes, Toby C. Rider, and Matthew P. Llewellyn, Sport and Apartheid South Africa: Histories of Politics, Power, and Protest (London: Routledge, 2022).
Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, Moritz A. Mihatsch, and Michelle M. Sikes, The Politics of Historical Memory and Commemoration in Africa (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022)
Michelle Sikes and John Bale, Women's Sport in Africa (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015).

Recent Articles and Book Chapters

Michelle M. Sikes (2023). ‘One-Tenth of a Second Does Not Really Count’: Humphrey Khosi, Olympic Ultimatums, and the Tortured Logic of the South African Amateur Athletic Union of 1962. Journal of Olympic Studies.
Michelle M. Sikes and Alfred Anangwe (2023). ‘It is the Principle behind the Issue which is Important and Sacred’: Kenyan Rugby and the 1980 University of Nairobi Student Campaign to End British Contact with Apartheid Sport. Safundi: The Journal of South African and American Studies.
Mark Dyreson and Michelle M. Sikes (2022). ‘A Democracy That Will Know Not the Differences of Race’: American ‘Globetrotting’ in South Africa from the 1920s through the 1980s in Perspective. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 1088-98.
Michelle M. Sikes, Jacob J. Fredericks, Paulina A. Rodriguez, Emmanuel Macedo, Michael Poorman, Matthew Lyons, Rusha Pandit, and Mark Dyreson (2022). ‘I Consider Myself a Political Prisoner’: The Long and Strange Journeys of American Rebels Enmeshed in Ironies of the Athletes’ Rights Crusade. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 1059-87.
Michelle M. Sikes, Jacob J. Fredericks, Paulina A. Rodriguez, Emmanuel Macedo, Michael Poorman, Matthew Lyons, Rusha Pandit, and Mark Dyreson (2022). ‘Athletes for Peace’? From the Quest to Hold the Mavericks Accountable to a Second American Rebel Tour of South Africa. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 1027-58.
Michelle M. Sikes, Jacob J. Fredericks, Paulina A. Rodriguez, Emmanuel Macedo, Michael Poorman, Matthew Lyons, Rusha Pandit, and Mark Dyreson (2022). ‘We Didn’t Kill Any Babies’: The 1988 Rebel Track and Field Tour of South Africa. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 987-1026.
Michelle M. Sikes (2022). A ‘Rebel’ on the Run: Kenyan Gambles on Intercollegiate Athletics, Apartheid Sport, and US Road Racing of the 1980s—The Case of Samson Obwocha. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 959-86.
Michelle M. Sikes and Jacob J. Fredericks (2022). ‘It’s a Policy Matter, not a Racial Matter’: Athlete Activism and Symbiotic Struggles against Apartheid in US Track and Field of the Early 1970s. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 938-58.
Mark Dyreson and Michelle M. Sikes (2022). ‘I See the Struggle against Race Supremacy and Racial Inequality As World-Wide’: Anti-Apartheid Campaigns, Civil Rights Struggles, and the 1961 Track and Field Tours of South Africa. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 908-37.
Mark Dyreson and Michelle M. Sikes (2022). ‘Winners, Regardless’? Racial Politics, Civil Rights Struggles, and the 1950 Track and Field Tour of South Africa. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 881-907.
Mark Dyreson and Michelle M. Sikes (2022). ‘We Do Not Divide Our Champions According to Color’?: A Failed 1938 All-White Follow-Up Tour of South Africa. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 851-80.
Mark Dyreson and Michelle M. Sikes (2022). 'Inaugurating ‘Good Feeling between the United States and South Africa’: The 1931 All-White Tour of South Africa. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 823-50.
Michelle M. Sikes and Mark Dyreson (2022). 'Excavating the Ancestry of ‘Globetrotting’: New Perspectives on the Intersection of Racial Politics, Civil Rights Struggles and Anti-Apartheid Crusades in US Track and Field from the 1920s through the 1980s. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(8-9), 803-22.
Michelle M. Sikes, Matthew P. Llewellyn, and Toby C. Rider (2022). Sport in a Global Landscape of Anti-Apartheid Dissent: South African Histories from Within and Beyond. In Sport and Apartheid South Africa: Histories of Politics, Power, and Protest, eds. Michelle M. Sikes, Matthew P. Llewellyn, and Toby C. Rider (pp.1-8). London: Routledge.
Michelle M. Sikes, Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, and Moritz Mihatsch (2022). Public Memorialisation and the Politics of Historical Memory in Africa. In The Politics of Historical Memory and Commemoration in Africa, eds. Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, Moritz A. Mihatsch, and Michelle M. Sikes (pp. 1-20). Berlin: De Gruyter.
Cam Mallett and Michelle M. Sikes (2022). Paralympic Protest: Athlete Activism, Apartheid South Africa, and the International Sport Boycott in British Para Sport, 1979-1981. Sport in History, 42(3), 347-65.
Jaime Schultz, Michelle M. Sikes, and Cat Arial (2022). Women's Sport History. In The Routledge Handbook of Sport History, eds. Murray Phillips, Douglas Booth, and Carly Adams. London: Routledge.
Michelle M. Sikes (2021). Running for Peace and Development in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Peace Review, 32(4), 480-487.
Michelle M. Sikes (2021). 'If Britain Wants War on Africa, She Will Have It’: African Reprisals to the 1974 British Lions Rugby Tour of South Africa. Sport History Review, 52(2), 172-188.
Michelle Sikes (2020). The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend? A Clash of Anti-Apartheid Tactics and Targets in the Olympic Movement of the Early 1960s. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 37(7), 520-541.
Michelle Sikes, Toby Rider, and Matthew Llewellyn (2020). Sport in Isolation? New Perspectives on Race, Sport, and Politics in Apartheid South Africa. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 37(7), 515-519.
Michelle Sikes (2020). The Sport Lens: Why Africanist and World Historians Should Teach Sport. World History Bulletin, 36(2), 22-25.
Michelle Sikes (2020). Sprinting Past the End of Empire: Seraphino Antao and the Promise of Sport in Kenya, 1960-1964. In Todd Cleveland, Gerard Akindes, Tarminder Kaur (Eds.), Sports in Africa: Past and Present (pp. 219-232). Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
Michelle Sikes (2019). Enduring Legacies & Convergent Identities: The Male-dominated Origins of the Kenyan Running Explosion. Journal of Sport History 46(2), 273-287.
Michelle Sikes (2019). From Nairobi to Baden-Baden: African Politics, the International Olympic Committee, and Early Efforts to Censure Apartheid South Africa. The International Journal of the History of Sport 19(1), 7-23.
Michelle Sikes, Toby Rider, and Matthew Llewellyn (2019). New Perspectives on Sport and Apartheid: Local and Global. The International Journal of the History of Sport 36(1), 1-6.
Michelle Sikes (2019). Sport and Politics in Africa. In Nic Cheeseman (Ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Politics (25 pages). Oxford: Oxford University Press.