I gained my PhD in history from the University of Western Australia in 2017, where I am now an honorary research fellow.
I am interested in how sport reveals the cultural values of past societies. My work broadly revolves around gender, international relations and governance of Olympic sport, and I am a specialist in women’s gymnastics.
My doctoral thesis examined the history of women’s artistic gymnastics during the Cold War, which included discussion of gender, economics, and diplomacy in sport. In developing a book based on this thesis, I have expanded my analysis to include questions of femininity and feminism, race, and abuse. At the same time, I have collaborated on inter-disciplinary work relating to gymnastics and how coaching and governance can help prolong athlete careers and create more empowering experience for athletes.
I have also worked more generally on women’s sport history, recently co-editing a collection of biographies that reveal women’s extensive involvement in sports governance throughout the twentieth century, which was shortlisted for the North American Society for Sport History best anthology award in 2020.
For questions relating to socio-cultural-historical issues in gymnastics, the history of women’s sport or Cold War sport, please contact me at georgiacervin.research@gmail.com.
I am currently based in Wellington, New Zealand.
