Samuel M. Clevenger, Ph.D.

Samuel M. Clevenger joined the Department of Kinesiology at Towson University in 2018. Prior to his arrival, he taught at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research centers on the history of sport and physical culture and using the tools of historical analysis to better understand the role of sport and physical cultural practices in the creation of post-growth ways of living. As part of his research agenda, Dr. Clevenger is also interested in the intersections of sport and sound and the promotion of multi-cultural perspectives through sport-focused higher education. As of 2025, Dr. Clevenger is currently completing his second book project on the significance of "invention narratives" in sport history and the contemporary sport industry.

Select Publications

• Clevenger, S. M. (2025). Physical culture and the biopolitics of the international garden city movement: Planning healthy recreation. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Bustad, J. J., Clevenger, S. M., & Rick, O. J. (2025). After sport: Physical culture in the Anthropocene. International Review for the Sociology of Sport. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10126902251348622
• Clevenger, S. M., Rick, O. J. C., Weber, E., & Smith, R. (2024). The podcast as a knowledge translation tool for sport and physical activity research. In K. Rich, R. Smith, & A. Giles (Eds.), Participatory research in sport and physical activity (pp. 211-223). Routledge.
• Clevenger, S.M., & DeLuca, J.R. (2023). Contemplative pedagogy and decentering whiteness in sport management education. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education, 33, 100461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2023.100461
• Clevenger, S. M., & Andrews, D. L. (2021). Regenerating the ‘stock’ of the empire: Biopower and physical culture in English garden city planning discourse, 1898-1903. The International Journal for the History of Sport, 38(2-3), 282-301. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2021.1891531
• Clevenger, S. M. (2020). Transtemporal sport histories; Or, rethinking the ‘invention’ of American basketball. Sport in Society: Cultures, Commerce, Media, Politics, 23(5) 959-974. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2019.1597855

Research

• History of Sport and Physical Culture
• Sport, Physical Culture, and the (Built) Environment
• Sport and Sound

• Sport Management Education and Critical Pedagogies

Courses Taught 

• KNES 441 Women, Gender and Sport
• KNES 345 Seminar & Field Experience in Sport Management 
• KNES 353 Sport & Society 
•  KNES 251 History of Sport in America
• KNES 460 Cultural Economy of Sport
• KNES 351 Philosophy: The Sport Experience