Sports and the City: A Century in Detroit

City of Champions: Detroit, Sports, and a History of Triumph and Defeat (The New Press, 2020), by Silke-Maria Weineck and Stefan Szymanski, explores the history of Detroit through the stories of its most gifted athletes, linking iconic events in the history of Motown sports to the city’s shifting fortunes. Selected as a 2020 Michigan Notable Book by the Library of Michigan, City of Champions takes readers through Detroit’s stadiums, gyms, fields, and streets, tracing its proud and troubling history alongside its athletic triumphs and defeats. Ketra Armstrong will moderate a conversation with the authors, who will read vignettes from the book.

Ketra Armstrong is a professor of sport management in the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology, and a University Diversity & Social Transformation Professor. She is also the director of the Center for Race and Ethnicity in Sport.

Stefan Symanski is Stephen J. Galetti Collegiate Professor of Sport Management in the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology. He is an economist who studies sports, and was co-author of the bestseller Soccernomics. He is convinced that economics cannot be understood without also studying history.

Silke Weineck is a professor of German and comparative literature. She is interested in the long history of metaphors and narrative figures. After writing on mad poets, fatherhood, and war, she has discovered a love not so much for sport itself but for the stories it tells.

Free and open to the public.

This event is made possible by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.