Marta N. Mack, Ph.D.

Lecturer

Dr. Marta N. Mack is a Lecturer of Sport Leadership and an affiliate faculty member at The University of Kentucky in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Promotion (KHP) and the Department of African American and Africana Studies (AAAS), respectively. She holds a Ph.D. in the Cultural Studies of Sport (University of Iowa) and an MS in Sport Administration (University of Wisconsin-Lacrosse). Dr. Mack is also a proud HBCU graduate from South Carolina State University (Orangeburg, SC) Dr. Mack has worked in the sport industry in the areas of Development and Planned Gifts and Marketing at the Women’s Sports Foundation (Eisenhower Park, NY).
Her research lies at the intersections of the Cultural Studies of Sport, Black Feminist Cultural Studies, and the History of Sport. Her work aims to disrupt dominant cultural narratives about gender, race, and sexuality that maintain and reproduce the marginalization of Black women. Dr. Mack’s research is grounded, theoretically in Black feminism in order to interrogate how Black women resist the material and ideological effects of oppression (e.g., anti-blackness and patriarchy) within sport. This lens allows her to explore how the humanity of Black women has been seemingly rendered impossible materially, ideologically, and discursively via such institutions as education, media, and politics. Her scholarship theorizes how Black women (e.g., as athletes, administrators, sportswriters, wives, mothers, entertainers, etc.) assert their humanity in sport cultures that too often (re)produce anti-blackness and anti-black sexism.

Dr. Mack currently teaches several courses in the Departments of Kinesiology and Health Promotion as well as Education Policy and Evaluation. These courses include KHP 684: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Sport Organizations, KHP 686: Current Issues in Sport Leadership: Issues and Controversies, EPE 684: Higher Education in Collegiate Athletics: A Historical Analysis; KHP: 473 Managing Sport, KHP:688: Managing Sport Events, and KHP 676: Practicum in Sport Management.

Dr. Mack’s forthcoming book is titled, The Unruly Black Lady of the Negro Leagues: Effa Manley, Performance and Cultural Belonging.

Research Categories: Anti-Black Sexism in Sport, Black Performance, Black Women in Sport