Dissertation Title:

“Miles Before the Bell: Race, Agency, and Sporting Entitlements in Boxing”

Dissertation Advisor:

Dr. Gaye Theresa Johnson

Rudy Mondragón’s research looks at the sport of boxing and the ways in which black and brown boxers politically and culturally express themselves via the most important, yet understudied component of the sport: the ring entrance. He has written on the sport of boxing for Remezcla, We Are Mitú, and LA Taco and has been featured on ESPN, Fox Sports, CNN, Bleacher Report, Washington Post, New York Times, and other news platforms. Academically, Mondragón has written a film review of the boxing documentary “Champs” for the Journal of Sports History and a book review of Louis Moore’s I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915, for the International Review for the Sociology of Sport. He is currently working on Rings of Dissent: Boxing and the Performance of Rebellion, co-edited with Gaye Theresa Johnson and David J. Leonard and “Sporting Representations of El Salvador’s First World Champion: El Famoso and his Boxing Robe as Material Culture” for the Routledge Handbook of American Material Culture Studies (Forthcoming 2022).

He is the recipient of the prestigious University of California Cota Robles Fellowship, UC Berkeley Oral History Center Fellowship, UCLA Gold Shield Alumnae Graduate Fellowship, Fellow of the Smithsonian Latino Museum Studies Program, NCAA Ethnic Minority Enhancement Postgraduate Award, and Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports-Scholar Award.

In the fall of 2021, Mondragón will start a Visiting Assistant Professor position in Sport and Society at Pitzer College.

I dedicate this to my family, committee, friends, and the courageous boxers who agreed and trusted in me to share their stories.