Solomon Lennox
Boxing Scholar, Performance Ethnographer
Biography
Dr. P. Solomon Lennox is a Fellow of Boxing is Love and a leading scholar of boxing and performance. His academic work examines how narrative shapes the sport of boxing and those who participate in it. In Boxing and Performance (Crews & Lennox, 2020), he developed a typology that identifies three dominant narrative arcs in boxing: transformation, commodification, and public recognition. These story forms are not simply descriptive; they influence how boxers understand themselves, engage with the sport, and navigate their social worlds. As a performance ethnographer, Dr. Lennox brings together rigorous scholarship and embodied fieldwork to explore boxing as a cultural and expressive practice.
What boxing means to me
Boxing has always been a field of inquiry for me, a space where stories, bodies, and identities intersect. My research explores how boxers draw on shared narrative resources that shape their experiences inside and outside the ring. These narratives fall into three main categories: transformation, where boxing is cast as a vehicle for personal change; commodification, where boxers’ bodies are read as labor and product; and public recognition, where participation in boxing affirms social identity within families, peer groups, and communities. My work investigates how these stories are lived, adapted, and sometimes resisted. Through ethnographic research, I study how boxing participants engage with these narrative frameworks and what that means for how they live, train, and perform.