World Cup: The Syllabus

Players of South Africa pose for a team photo. Image© Joe Allison – FIFA

EDITORIAL TEAM

This syllabus was made possible by the curation of our editorial team.

Players of South Africa pose for a team photo. Image© Joe Allison – FIFA

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Peter Alegi

Dr. Peter Alegi is a Professor of History at Michigan State University and the author of Laduma! Soccer, Politics and Society in South Africa and African Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World’s Game. His new book, co-authored with Gerard Akindes, Cool Under Pressure: Bonga-Bonga’s Global African Football Life will be published in October 2026 by Ohio University Press. Alegi convenes the online Football Scholars Forum and hosts the Africa Past and Present podcast. He is the founding editor of MSU Press’s African History and Culture book series and an advisory board member of the International Journal of African Historical Studies and African Studies.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Laurent Dubois

Laurent Dubois is John L. Nau III Bicentennial Professor of the History & Principles of Democracy and the Academic Director of the Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia. From 2007 to 2020, he was professor of Romance Studies and history at Duke University, where he co-directed the Haiti Lab and founded and directed the Forum for Scholars & Publics. He is the author of eight books, including Soccer Empire: The World Cup and the Future of France (2010) and The Language of the Game: How to Understand Soccer(2018). His writings on soccer have appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, The The New York Times, and Sports Illustrated.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Brenda Elsey

Brenda Elsey is a professor of History at Hofstra University with a specialism in gender, politics, and popular culture in Latin America. She is the author of Citizens and Sportsmen: Fútbol and Politics in Twentieth-Century Chile and co-author with Joshua Nadel of Futbolera: A History of Women's Sport in Latin America (both University of Texas Press), co-editor of "Historicizing the Pleasure and Politics of Sport," a special issue of the Radical History Review, as well as many academic articles on gender and sport in Latin America. She has also written for The Guardian, New Republic, and Sports Illustrated and co-hosts the sport and feminism podcast, Burn It All Down. Elsey is also Development Lead in the Americas for the Fare Network, which works on anti-discrimination in global football, monitors international matches for sexism, racism, and homophobia, and develops grass-roots projects. Her current manuscript project, Losing to Win: Histories of Labor and Politics in Latin American Sport is under contract with the University of North Carolina press.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Sean Jacobs

Sean Jacobs is a writer and researcher. He has held academic positions at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and The New School and, beginning in September 2026, will be Affiliate Faculty with the Global Sport Lab in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. He founded Africa Is a Country and currently edits the Substack Eleven Named People. He will be a visiting fellow at the Urban Democracy Lab at New York University in the 2026-27 academic year.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Martha Saavedra

Martha Saavedra, PhD, Emerita, was the Associate Director of the Center for African Studies at the University of California, Berkeley for three decades. Over her career she taught at St. Mary’s College of California, Ohio University, La Escuela Universitaria Real Madrid Universidad Europea, and UC Berkeley. Her publications include work on sport, gender, and development in Africa, agrarian politics and ethnic conflict in Sudan, and representations of Africa in Chinese popular culture. She is a board member of Sport Africa and Soccer Without Borders. She has been involved with football most of her life as a player, coach, scholar, parent, and fan.

EDITOR

Ron Krabill

Ron Krabill is Director of the Global Sport Lab in the Jackson School of International Studies a the University of Washington Seattle and Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UW Bothell. He is a scholar of media, politics, cultural studies, global football, and human rights. He is the author of Starring Mandela and Cosby: Media and the End(s) of Apartheid, and co-editor of Feminist Interventions in Participatory Media. His teaching has been recognized with both the UW Distinguished Teaching Award as well as the UW Distinguished Teaching Award for Teams, and he has led seven study abroad programs focused on the politics of soccer and sports development in both Africa and Europe.

MANAGING EDITOR

Pavandeep Singh Josan

Pavandeep Singh Josan is an MA student at the University of Washington, studying South Asian Studies. At UW, he is researching the impact of Partition upon South Asian diasporic communities in the United States and Canada. He is the recipient of a Fulbright Award to facilitate his study at UW and plans to use his research to foster understanding and dialogue between South Asian diasporic communities. He has a keen interest in critical sport studies, and is interested in exploring the ways that sport, politics, and identity overlap. Outside of academia, Pavandeep worked for the UK Government as a policy advisor at the Department for Education between 2022 and 2024.

VISUAL DESIGNER

Emilia Flores

Emilia Flores is currently a Visual Communication Design student at the University of Washington, graduating Spring 2026. She has worked with the Global Sport Lab for the last year to develop their brand identity, merchandise, and websites. Emilia is deeply interested in design for the sports industry, and is very inspired by the passion and excitement that great design can spur in fans.

World Cup: The Syllabus is a project of the Global Sport Lab and the University of Washington Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.