Name: William Sclabassi
Year in program: 2
Primary supervisor: Dr. Edward Murphy
Major field: Latin American Studies
Minor fields: Sports history, dictatorship, authoritarianism, cultural studies
Link to your personal page or profile: https://hcommons.org/members/sclabas7/
William Sclabassi studies the intersections of soccer and politics under dictatorship in South America in the 20th century. William holds a BA in History from Western Washington University, where his undergraduate thesis research focused on the U.S. – Mexico War of 1846-48, the rogue St. Patrick’s Battalion, and their transnational impacts on Irish and Mexican cultures. Currently William seeks to research how soccer was used to both legitimize and challenge dictatorships in South America. Historical English-language scholarship on soccer in South America often ignores the political uses of the “Beautiful Game,” while scholarship on authoritarian rule in South America relegates sports to mere footnotes. Additionally, soccer fans the world over have long been embroiled in a debate over whether soccer should be an “a-political” space. William sees soccer as a vehicle for power, constantly contested.