Fred Mason

Research interests

Fred’s research interests vary across the sociology and history of sport. Specific research interests include:

• sport in/and the media; media construction of gender, ethnicity and disability
• sport in literature and film
• the history of disability sports, with links to medical history
• running (ultrarunning) as sporting community and cultural practice

Biography

Fred Mason is an associate professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of New Brunswick. His Master’s research was in Sociology of Sport, and his doctorate in Sport History. Fred came to UNB in 2006 after teaching in the Sport, Media and Culture program at De Montfort University in Bedford, England.

Publications

Mason, F. (2014). “Watching the Watchers: A Visual Sociology Essay on Control, Security and Surveillance at Olympic Women’s Soccer in Glasgow.” Surveillance & Society, 11(4) (2014), 405-423. 

Mason, F. (2014). “Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games: Consuming the Olympics through Video Gaming.” In Intersections and Intersectionalities in Olympic and Paralympic Studies: TwelfthInternational Symposium for Olympic Research, 69-76.

Mason, F. (2013). “Athletic, but ambivalent, and in brief: Canadian newspaper coverage of sledge hockey pre-Vancouver.” Sport in Society, 16(3), 310-326.

Mason, F. (2013), “A History of the Hooters: Basketball, Newfoundland Religious Schools and the NBA at the Turn of the 1990s.” Sport History Review, 44(1), 38-52.

Mason, F. (2013). “Time and Again: Teaching the History of Sport and Recreation through a Thematic Approach.” Antistasis: A New Brunswick Education Journal. 3(1), 11-14.

Mason, F. (2012). “Choices of Commemoration: Analysis of Canadian Winter Olympic Commemorative Videos.” In Problems, Possibilities, Promising Practices: Critical Dialogues on the Olympic and Paralympic Games - Eleventh International Symposium for Olympic Research, 6-11.

Mason, F. (2012), “From Rehabilitation Patients to Rehabilitating Athletes: Searching for a History of Sports Medicine for Athletes with Disabilities,” in Dominic Malcolm & Parissa Safai (Eds.) The Social Organization of Sports Medicine. London: Routledge, 77-103

Mason. F. “Pure Hockey, Community and “Canada’s Game” in Documentary Film.” In Putting it on Ice: Proceedings of the 2012 Hockey Conference (Halifax, NS: Saint Mary’s University): 82-99.

Mason, F. (2011). “Losing Ground in the Run Towards Science? The Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in Kinesiology.” Proceedings of the International Conference of the Liberal Arts. St. Thomas University.

Mason, F. (2010). “Sculpting Soldiers and Reclaiming the Maimed: R. Tait McKenzie’s Work in the First World War Period.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History/Bulletin canadien d’histoire de la medicine, 27, (2), 363-383.

Mason, F. “Returning to the Coliseum: Science Fiction Visions of Future Sports,” in Mead, D. and Frelik, P. (Eds.), Playing the Universe: Games and Gaming in Science Fiction (Maria Curie-Sklodowska University Press, 2007), 127-139.

Conference presentations

Mason, F. “Killian’s Quest”: Killian Jornet, Salomon and Ultrarunning’s New Commercial Realities. Presented at the International Sociology of Sport Association Conference, Paris, France, June 2015.

Mason, F. “Racing Ourselves to Death? Death Race and the Trajectory of Science Fiction on Sport.” Presented at the Sport Literature Association Conference, Johnson City, Tennessee, June 2015.

Mason, F. “Always Moving Forward: Writing (and) Ultrarunning.” Presented at the Sport Literature Association Conference, College of the Rockies, Cranbrook, BC, June 2014.

Mason, F. “Career Stages, Comrades, Karnazes, and Aquaintances: Entry Paths into Ultrarunning,” Presented at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Conference, Quebec City, November 2013.

Mason, F., & Stacey, C. “At Play with Sandy McTire: Reading Canadian Sport and Leisure History from Canadian Tire Catalogue Covers.” Presented at the North American Society for the History of Sport Conference, Halifax, NS, May 2013.

Mason, F. “Evolved to Run? Considering and critiquing Ultrarunning’s ‘Evolutionary Argument.’” Presented at the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Conference, New Orleans, November 2012.

Mason, F. “At the Core, but not much more: Sport sociology in the Canadian Kinesiology undergraduate curriculum.” Presented at the International Sociology of Sport Association Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, July 2012.

Mason, F. “Minor Games, Major Differences: Canadian Newspaper Coverage of the 2007 Panamerican and Parapanamerican Games.” Presented at the International Sociology of Sport Association Conference, Havana, Cuba, July 2011.

Mason, F. “Sporting at the Apocalypse: On the Beach and at the racetrack with Nevil Shute.” Presented to the Sport Literature Association Conference, Orono, Maine, June 2011.