Event: Sport, Identity, and Power: How Hungarian Politics Exploits Athletes, Football, and Invented Traditions

Sport. Politics. Conflict: Entanglements of Hard and Soft Power 

Lecture Series at the Leibniz ScienceCampus

Taking its cue from the men's FIFA World Cup hosted by the USA, Canada and Mexico, the ScienceCampus is organizing a lecture series at the University of Regensburg in summer semester 2026. The talks by scholars based in Regensburg, across Germany and the world will address a range of sports and their intersections with soft power, hard power, diplomacy, security, economics and identity- building. Contributions come from a range of disciplines, including history, cultural studies, economics, gender studies, sociology, political science and sports science. Open to students, researchers and the public, the interdisciplinary lecture series offers a chance to explore how sport intersects with identity, ideology, and global power.

Programme | Programm

Wednesdays | 14.15-15:45 | H5 - UR main campus

15 April | Jörg Skriebeleit (UR / Flossenbürg) / Erinnerung an München 1972

22 April | Dario Brentin (Graz, Southeast European History) Breaking/Making the Nation? Sport and the construction of identities

29 April | Veronika Springmann (Head of Berlin Sport Museum) Mehr als nur eine Sportstätte: der Olympiapark in Berlin

6 May | Tobias Korn (Hannover, Economics) Football, Status Threat, and Political Attitudes

13 May | Michael Fleig (UR, Media Studies) Rez Ball: Basketball im Kontext der Indigenous Resurgence in Nordamerika

20 May | Dagmar Schmelzer (UR, Romance Studies) Cricket, Eishockey, Lacrosse – Fußball? Die spielerisch-sportliche Austragung (inter)kultureller Konkurrenzen in quebecer Selbsterzählungen

27 May | Joanna Moszczyńska (UR, DIMAS) Ryszard Kapuściński und der Fußballkrieg (1969: Honduras und El Salvador.)

3 June | Katrin Mayerhofer (Passau, Politikwissenschaft) Globale Bühne, nationale Interessen: Die politischen Dimensionen von Sportgroßereignissen

10 June | Győző Molnár (Worcester, England, Sociology) Sport, Identity, and Power: How Hungarian Politics Exploits Athletes, Football, and Invented Traditions

17 June | Ben Chappell (Kansas, American Studies) Could the USA Win the World Cup? Commerce and Culture in American Sports

24 June | Victoria Harms (Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, History) The Games that Made a President: The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles & Ronald Reagan’s America

1 July | Jiří Zákravský (Pilsen, Political Science) Undemocratic Regimes and Professional Road Cycling Teams’ Sponsorship

8 July | Árpád von Klimó (Catholic University of America, Washington, History) Pan-African Perspectives on the History of the Men's FIFA World Cup (1930-2026)

15 July | Exam / Klausur