Resistance is Never Futile: Un-sporting Surfing as Radical Female Behavior

Using the narrative imagery of Instagram and the cultural narrative of the
Olympics, I explore the role of agency and autonomy in modern sport with a focus on the
commercial and institutional arms of surfing. This project is an attempt to evaluate visual
and cultural narrative from the perspective of a literary scholar and to root theory and
philosophy in issues that go beyond scholarship and academics. In chapter one, I use
sports sociologists Jennifer Hargreaves and Krista Comer as well as Jean Kilbourne and
Rosalind Gill to illuminate and explore two surf-centric Instagram accounts, both of
which imagine a story of surfing through a mostly visual medium. In chapter two, I turn
to Elizabeth Grosz and Michel Foucault to help explore the institutionalized arm of
surfing through its recent inclusion in the Olympic Games.