Nathan Kalman-Lamb

Assistant Professor

Sociology

Fredericton

nathan.kalman.lamb@unb.ca
1 506 452 6217



Nathan Kalman-Lamb joined the Department of Sociology at UNB as an Assistant Professor in 2022. Previously, he worked as a Lecturing Fellow in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University for six years after receiving his doctorate in Social and Political Thought from York University in 2016.

In addition to the research cited below, Nathan is the co-host of The End of Sport podcast and a frequent contributor to The Guardian, The Chronicle of Higher Education, TIME, Los Angeles Times, Jacobin, and other public venues.

Research interests

Nathan's scholarly work sits at the intersection of social theory and the sociology of sport, with a particular focus on labor, racism, and exploitation. His most recent book Game Misconduct: Injury, Fandom, and the Business of Sport, based on qualitative interviews with former professional hockey players and fans of the sport, uses Marxist-Feminist social reproduction theory to explore how the political economy of sports like hockey is predicated on an affective transfer from athletic workers to fans through the physical sacrifice that is fundamental to these 'games.'

His current research focuses on the world of US college football. Alongside collaborator Derek Silva, he is exploring through qualitative interviews with former US college football players how their experiences in the sport were saturated with harm, coercion, and exploitation. This project, the foundation of a book contracted with UNC Press entitled The End of College Football: Exploitation in the Ivory Tower and on the Gridiron, examines the ways in which physical harm, coaching abuse, economic extraction, racialized plantation dynamics, and a desiccated academic experience make US college football one of the most exploitative sites in US society today. This project finds its theoretical inspiration in an intersection between racial capitalism theory and Marxist-Feminist social reproduction theory.

Books

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2018). Game Misconduct: Injury, Fandom, and the Business of Sport. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

Abdel-Shehid, Gamal & Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2011.) Out of Left Field: Critical Perspectives on Social Inequality and Sport. Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.

Academic journals

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2021). Imagined Communities of Fandom: Sport, Spectatorship, Meaning, and Alienation in Late Capitalism. Sport in Society. 24 (6). 922-936.

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2020). Listening to the Literature: A Case for Centering Writing in Critical Sociology of Sport Pedagogy. Sport, Education and Society. 25 (6). 643-653.

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2019). Athletic Labor and Social Reproduction. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 43 (6). 515-530.

Abdel-Shehid, Gamal & Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2017). Complicating Gender, Sport, and Social Inclusion: The Case for Intersectionality. Social Inclusion, 5 (2). 159-162.

Abdel-Shehid, Gamal & Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2015). Multiculturalism, Gender, and Bend it Like Beckham. Social Inclusion, 3 (3). 142-152.

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2013). The athlete as model minority subject: Jose Bautista and Canadian Multiculturalism. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 19 (2). 238-253.

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2012). “A Portrait of This Country": Whiteness, Indigeneity, Multiculturalism and the Vancouver Opening Ceremonies. Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 27. 5-27.

Book chapters

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2020). The (African) American Dream: Spectacle and Post-Racial Teleology in US Sports Films. In Drew D. Brown (Ed.), Passing the Ball: Sports in African American Life and Culture. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company.

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2020). “I Hate Christian Laettner” and the Persistence of Hegemonic Masculinity and Heteronormativity in Sporting Cultures. In Rory Magrath, Jamie Cleland, and Eric Anderson (Eds.), Palgrave Handbook of Masculinity and Sport. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2018). Hegemonic Whiteness and the Nation’s Pastime: Qualitative Interviews with Retired Professional Players on Race and Hockey in Canada. In Jennifer Anderson and Jennifer Ellison (Eds.), Hockey: Challenging Canada’s Game. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of History Mercury Series and University of Ottawa Press.

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2015). Deconstructing Linsanity: Is Jeremy Lin a Model Minority Subject? In Nicholas Hartlep and Brad Porfilio (Eds.), Killing the Model Minority Stereotype: Asian American Counterstories and Complicity. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing.

Recent public scholarship

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, Silva, Derek, & Mellis, Johanna. (2022, April 20). “I’m at a money-hungry school”: Athletes angry as colleges shun chance to pay them” The Guardian. (Online).

Casper, Stephen. Smith, Jay. & Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. (2022, January 20). The Big Threat to Academic Freedom No One’s Talking About. Inside Higher Ed. (Online).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, Silva, Derek, & Mellis, Johanna. (2021, December 22). “A Slap in the Face”: College Coach Cash Grab Alienates Athletes.” Sportico. (Online). Dec. 22.

Silva, Derek, Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, & Mellis, Johanna. (2021, December 14). Beyond NIL: 5 Areas Where the Fight for Athletes’ Rights Continues. Global Sport Matters. (Online).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, Silva, Derek, & Mellis, Johanna. (2021, December 8). “This is a job”: Why college players reject the insidious term ‘student athlete.’” The Guardian. (Online).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan. Smith, Jay. & Casper, Stephen. (2021, December 6). “Student Athlete” Has Always Been a Lie. Chronicle of Higher Education. (Online).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, Silva, Derek, & Mellis, Johanna. (2021, December 2). College coaches reap millions from unpaid labor of athletes.” Los Angeles Times. (Print).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, Silva, Derek, & Mellis, Johanna. (2021, September 7). Race, money and exploitation: Why college sport is still the “new plantation.” The Guardian. (Online).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan & Shafer, Kevin. (2021, June 21). Big-time US college sport still favors profits over survivors of sexual abuse. The Guardian. (Online).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, Silva, Derek, & Mellis, Johanna. (2021, May 27). There’s never been a better time for US college athletes to unionize. The Guardian. (Online).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, Silva, Derek, & Mellis, Johanna. (2021, March 17). “I signed my life to rich white guys”: Athletes on the racial dynamics of college sports.” The Guardian. (Online).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, Silva, Derek, & Mellis, Johanna. (2021, January 11). Players Rip a F*cking Corrupt College Football Season. The Daily Beast. (Online).

Kalman-Lamb, Nathan, Silva, Derek, & Mellis, Johanna. (2020, December 21). In COVID-19 Pandemic, College Basketball Should Stop. TIME. (Online).

Supervision areas

  • Classical and contemporary social theory
  • Marxisms
  • Racial capitalism
  • Sociology of sport
  • Labor of sport
  • Postcolonial/anti-racist critique of multiculturalism
  • Social reproduction

Please contact me to discuss possible supervision for undergraduate, MA, and PhD research projects.