Yes: That is a Stoke City shirt. It is being proudly displayed by CMCI’s Professor Richard Howells, who was invited to speak at the launch of Henrik Linden and Sara Linden’s new book: Fans and Fan Cultures.
The book is a scholarly exploration of the relationship between fandom and consumer culture, and includes chapters on football and popular culture. All speakers and participants were invited to bring along examples of their own “fandom” to the event. In our picture, Sara Linden holds up her much-treasured “Kylie at Christmas” cut-out; Henrik Linden sports his West Ham United supporters’ scarf.
In his talk, Richard Howells attempted to explain how people who really ought to know better were still football fans –and even followed teams such as Stoke. He also spoke about some of the differences -and surprising similarities- between professional football and academia.
Dr Henrik Linden is a recent PhD graduate from CMCI (having been supervised by Professor Howells) and is now Senior Lecturer at the University of East London. Dr Sara Linden is a Lecturer at Goldsmith’s College. Fans and Fan Cultures: Tourism, Consumerism and Social Media is published by Palgrave Macmillan (2017).
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