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Teaching Fellow
Room 1.23, 55 Union Street West
Email sebastian.potgieter@otago.ac.nz

Background

Dr Sebastian Potgieter is a teaching fellow working in critical sports studies. He specialises in the historiographic analysis of sport and its intersection with (post)colonial nationhood, national identity, and mythologies. He has been with the School since 2017 and is a graduate of Stellenbosch University (South Africa), where he completed a Bachelors (2013), Honours (2014) and Masters (2016) before completing his PhD (2020) at the University of Otago.

Teaching

Dr Potgieter oversees and teaches into the following papers:

Research

Dr Potgieter’s research interests broadly encompass exploring the intersections between sport and the nation and, in particular, how the (sporting) past is used to legitimate contemporary iterations of the nation. His recent research has delved into the narratives, mythologies and politicisation of New Zealand’s sporting links with apartheid South Africa and how these connections are contemporarily represented.

Postgraduate Students

Current Students

  • Hongxiu Gou (PhD). Co-Supervised: Mark Falcous, Paula Voci
  • Phoebe Evans (BSc Honours). Co-Supervised: Mark Falcous
  • Lili Ovendale (BSc Honours). Co-Supervised: Mark Falcous

Graduates

  • Nicole Porter (BSc Honours – First Class). “(Re)Constructing Yvette Williams: The ‘Sportsman’” (2022). Co-supervised: Mark Falcous.
  • Madison Poingdestre (BSc Honours – First Class). “Perceptions of Pain and Injury Amongst Adolescent New Zealand School Girls”. Co-supervised: Mark Falcous.

Publications

Potgieter, S., & Falcous, M. (2024, May). Shifting constructions of the sporting past: Narrating the 1981 Springbok tour. Verbal presentation at the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH) Annual Conference, Denver, USA. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Potgieter, S. J. S. (2024). Israel's uncertain place in international sport. Newsroom, (22 August). Retrieved from https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/08/22/israels-uncertain-place-in-international-sport/ Journal - Professional & Other Non-Research Articles

Falcous, M., & Potgieter, S. (2024). National mythscapes and popular New Zealand rugby histories: Representing the 1986 Cavaliers. International Journal of the History of Sport. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/09523367.2024.2371475 Journal - Research Article

Potgieter, S. (2023, July). SACOS & New Zealand: Assessing the influence of the anti-apartheid movement. Panel discussion at the SACOS@50: A Retrospective Colloquium, Johannesburg, South Africa. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Potgieter, S. (2022). [Review of the book Sport, war and the British: 1850 to the present]. Journal of Sport History, 49(2), 184-186. [Book Review]. Journal - Research Other

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