University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: April 3, 2008

By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer

Before earning a doctorate in African-American studies and history from Yale University, Theresa Runstedtler was a professional dancer, model and actress. She also studied radio and television production at Ryerson University and worked in the public relations department of a Canadian national sports network.

Theresa Runstedtler says her previous career as a professional entertainer has been a source of insight for her current research—exploring representations of race in popular culture.
PHOTO: NANCY J. PARISI

But while the path she took to a career in academia was far from the traditional route, Runstedtler, who joined the UB faculty last fall as an assistant professor in the Department of American Studies, College of Arts and Sciences, says working in the world of professional entertainment has been an important source of insight and inspiration when it comes to her current research: exploring representations of race in popular culture.

“Having been a performer, I understand what the constraints are on people who are just rank-and-file performers,” says Runstedtler, who was frequently typecast in roles that portrayed ethnic women in a negative light. “You’re really caught within whatever are the stereotypes of the day,” she says. “It’s one thing to read about it and it’s another thing to see it in operation. A lot of stereotypes—and limitations on representation—still exist.”

She is exploring these issues in a historical context as part of a book project that uses a unique subject—the sport of boxing—to reveal the ways in which popular racial stereotypes were brought to the forefront in Australasia, Europe and the Americas by Jack Johnson, who traveled the globe as the first black world heavyweight boxing champion.

“African-American boxers who traveled outside the United States to get away from Jim Crow segregation actually stirred up conversations about race and imperial control in places such as London, Paris, Havana, Mexico City and Cape Town,” Runstedtler explains, noting that the book is an offshoot of her doctoral dissertation, “Journeyman: Race, Boxing and the Transnational World of Jack Johnson.”

“In a nutshell,” she says, “it uses boxing culture and the life of Jack Johnson while he’s abroad to examine popular ideas about race, empire, manhood and the body from roughly the 1880s to 1930s.”

In her research travels to the British Library and the French Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, Runstedtler says she has found that foreign press coverage of boxing matches involving black athletes frequently were characterized by frank comments on politics and perceptions of racial difference—writings that have remained largely untapped by historians working in African-American studies.

“They often talked about imperial and foreign relations through the boxing ring because boxers represented races and nations,” she says, pointing to a proposed fight in 1911 that never took place between Johnson and British heavyweight champion “Bombardier Billy Wells”—a former British serviceman who had been stationed in India—which not only stirred up musings on race and imperialism in the press, but also created an outcry against contests between the races so fierce that a color line was established in British title boxing that lasted until 1947.

“I found that there was just a lot of uncensored conversation about the questions I wanted to find out about,” Runstedtler says. “And it wasn’t mediated through any kind of elite literature—thousands of people went to these fights and there were tons of [boxing] magazines that were inexpensive and catered to a working-class audience.”

Yet, while sportswriting is a great place to plumb the average citizen’s thoughts on race and politics at the turn of the 20th century, she says scholarship on the subject is strangely lacking. “I think often people—particularly people in the academic world—don’t really take sports very seriously,” says Runstedtler, who was involved in everything from playing soccer to figure skating from a young age. “But, arguably, sports have a much broader audience—and generate a lot more money—than other forms of popular culture that have become much more visible in American studies scholarship,” she says, including music, theater, film and literature.

Her work on boxing is not only trying to uncover historical insight into topics such as race and imperialism, she explains, but also provide an example of how to examine sports in a way that goes beyond traditional approaches to the subject—which frequently focus merely on biography—by speaking to the concerns of social historians.

In addition to her research, Runstedtler is teaching several courses this semester, including an undergraduate course entitled “Black Popular Culture,” as well as a graduate-level seminar on race and popular culture in the United States.

“When I teach, I don’t necessarily just want to teach my research interests,” she adds, noting that she not only focuses on African-American culture, but also talks about Native-American studies, Asian-American studies and Latino studies. “I want to give people a body of knowledge that will be useful to them beyond the class,” she says. “That’s why I tend to teach broader topics—and it also gives me a chance to read outside of my comfort zone.”

Teaching in a smaller department also provides a chance to participate in a wide variety of academic activities, she says, pointing out she has already served on a search committee and a graduate admissions committee, and has joined the Buffalo Seminar for Racial Justice, an interdisciplinary faculty group under the auspices of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy. She is organizing a meeting of U.S. and Canadian scholars on race that will be held next month at the University of Toronto.

A native of Kitchener, Ontario, who earned a bachelor’s degree in history and English literature from York University in Toronto, Runstedtler says coming to UB and Buffalo—a location closer to family—has felt a bit like “coming home” after six years in New England.

“It’s just been such a whirlwind that I haven’t really had a chance to just explore Buffalo,” she adds, “but I like going to the places along Elmwood because I live down there.” She says exploring the neighborhood is particularly fun with her dog, Billie, a tiny Yorkie-poodle mix named after the famous singer Billie Holiday. She jokes that Billie not only enjoys walking around downtown, but is also turning into the “unofficial mascot” of the Department of American Studies.