Jules Boykoff

Jules Boykoff (born September 11, 1970) is an American academic, author, and former athlete. He is a former professional soccer player. His research focuses on the politics of the Olympic games, social movements, the suppression of dissent, and the role of the mass media in US politics, especially regarding coverage of climate change issues.

Life and work

Soccer career

At the college level, Boykoff played two years for the University of Wisconsin before crossing to the University of Portland. After graduating he was drafted in 1993 by indoor soccer team Portland Pride of the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL). He later joined rival NPSL team Milwaukee Wave. In all he played four seasons of indoor professional soccer.^[1][2][3]

At the age of 19, he played for the United States men's national under-23 soccer team in the 1990 Toulon Tournament.^[4] The United States Soccer Federation entered the 1990, 1991 and 1992 editions in preparation for the 1992 Summer Olympics football tournament.

Academic career

Boykoff is currently a professor of Politics and Government at Pacific University, Oregon. In 2007 and 2009, students selected him as recipient of the Trombley Award for teaching excellence. He also held a visiting professor position at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington during the 2004-2005 school year.^[5]

Boykoff has been called “one of the biggest names in international Olympic Games academia."^[6] He is the author of Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics (Verso, 2016), Activism and the Olympics: Dissent at the Games in Vancouver and London (Rutgers University Press, 2014) and Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games (Routledge, 2013). He has written op-eds on Olympic politics for the Guardian,^[7] the New York Times,^[8][9][10] the San Francisco Chronicle,^[5] and elsewhere.^[11] He has also appeared on the BBC,^[12] Democracy Now!,^[13] and NHK TV in Japan^[14] to discuss the Olympic Games.

Boykoff has appeared on various radio shows, including Democracy Now!, Alternative Radio,^[15] Living on Earth,^[16] CounterSpin,^[17] The Thom Hartmann Program, and Media Matters with Bob McChesney^[18] to discuss the intersection of politics, the media, and global warming. He is the author of two books on the suppression of dissent: Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States (AK Press, 2007 ISBN 978-1-904859-59-8) and The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch USAmerican Social Movements (Routledge, 2006 ISBN 978-0-415-97810-1).

Boykoff is also a published poet. He is the author of Once upon a Neoliberal Rocket Badge (Edge Books, 2006)^[19] and his poem “Commandment #8” was named 2006 Sexiest Poem of the Year by Philadelphia poet CA Conrad.^[20] With his longtime partner/wife Kaia Sand, who is also a poet, Boykoff runs The Tangent Reading Series in Portland, Oregon.^[21][22]

Common course topics taught by Boykoff include US politics, the politics of surveillance, mass-media and politics, and the politics of literature and poetry.^[23] In November 2006, he spoke at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, "COP 12".^[21][24] In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore mentioned work Boykoff co-authored with his brother Maxwell Boykoff (Oxford University, Environmental Change Institute) on US media coverage of global warming.^[21]

Boykoff is also co-editor of The Tangent, a politics and art zine.^[25]

Personal life

Jules is married to the poet Kaia Sand. They live in Portland, Oregon with their daughter Jessi Wahnetah.

Selected publications

Books

• Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics (Verso, 2016)
• Activism and the Olympics: Dissent at the Games in Vancouver and London (Rutgers University Press, 2014)
• Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games (Routledge, 2013)
• Hegemonic Love Potion (Queens, New York. Factory School, 2009) (poetry)
• Landscapes of Dissent: Guerrilla Poetry & Public Space, co-authored with Kaia Sand (Palm Press, 2008)
• Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States, (AK Press, 2007)
• The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch USAmerican Social Movements (Routledge, 2006)
• Once Upon a Neoliberal Rocket Badge' (Edge Books, 2006) (poetry)

Recent Scholarly Publications

• ″U.S. Media Coverage of the Cancún Climate Change Conference," PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 45, No. 2 (April 2012): 251-258.
• The Tea Party Movement, Framing, and the U.S. Media," (with Eulalie Laschever) Social Movement Studies, Vol. 10, No. 4 (November 2011): 341-366.
• The Leaf Blower, Capitalism, and the Atomization of Everyday Life," Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol. 22, No. 3 (September 2011): 95-113.
• Space Matters: The 2010 Winter Olympics and Its Discontents," Human Geography, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2011): 48-60.
• Fun at the Games: The Anti-Olympics," New Left Review 67 (Jan-Feb 2011): 41-59.
• "Limiting Dissent: The Mechanisms of State Repression in the United States" Social Movement Studies, .
• "Surveillance, Spatial Compression, and Scale: The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr." Antipode, .
• "Climate Change and Journalistic Norms: A Case Study of U.S. Mass-Media Coverage" (with Maxwell Boykoff). Geoforum, .
• "Dissent" Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice
• "Framing Dissent: Mass Media Coverage of the Global Justice Movement" New Political Science Vol. 28, No. 2 (June 2006): 201-228.
• "Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the U.S. Prestige Press" (with Maxwell Boykoff). Global Environmental Change Vol. 15: No. 2 (July 2004): 125-136.

References

External links

• Pacific University Faculty Page
• Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press 2004
• Boykoff '08 video ad on YouTube
• Interview in Pacific Magazine
• Tangent Press
• Oregonian article
• Interview with Boykoff on poetry and art
• Download MP3 of Jules Boykoff Interviewed By Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive magazine
• Jules Boykoff Poetry Page @DC Poetry Website links to seven poems by Boykoff: "city-dwellers," "paradigm as semi-fossilized ideology," "Ernesto Zedillo and Janet the Galaxy Girl Quibble Historicity," "For Whom Does It Boom?," "twofold origin of manufacture," "the general form of value," and "the fetishism of democracy & the secret thereof."