Aligned in multiples along the line of scrimmage, colliding thunderously with every snap, plastic safety helmets are the symbolic focal point for the fascination and love of millions of American football fans. Given their colorful designs and high visibility on television, they have also become preeminent branding spaces for multi-billion dollar NFL teams and prominent American universities alike. And yet, in an era of much-publicized research into brain injuries, the helmet has also been revealed to be the focal point of devastating head trauma so insidious, it threatens to destroy the sport itself.
In this SMAC talk, Dr. Noah Cohan, Assistant Director of American Culture Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, will discuss his research into the history and culture of the football helmet, share how his personal and professional journey as a Sports Studies scholar led him to the project, and join participants in examining and analyzing multiple helmets from different eras of Notre Dame football.
This event is free and open to the public.
Noah Cohan is writer and Sports Studies scholar in St. Louis, where he works as Assistant Director of American Culture Studies at WashU. He is also co-editor of Power Plays: The New Sports Studies, a new book series from the University of Oklahoma Press, and the founding coordinator of the Sports Studies Caucus of the American Studies Association. With John Early, he is the creator of Whereas Hoops, a multimedia work of scholarship and activism that successfully advocated for the installation of basketball hoops St. Louis's Forest Park.
Cohan’s writing has appeared in Slate, the Conversation, and the Common Reader, among other platforms, and his expertise has been featured in interviews with The New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Bleacher Report. Cohan’s first book, We Average Unbeautiful Watchers: Fan Narratives and the Reading of American Sports was published by the University of Nebraska Press in 2019. He’s currently at work on a cultural history of the football helmet.