Dr Sam West

Sam is currently a Research Assistant in Digitial Storytelling based within the School’s Sport, Business and Society research and innovation theme. He supports Dr Verity Postlethwaite as part of a collaborative project funded by the Spirt of 2012 with the aim of creating a digital resource for application in early years education settings.  

Prior to joining the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Sam completed an undergraduate degree in Fine Art (Bath Spa University), a postgraduate degree in Museum Studies (University of Leicester) and a doctorate in drama exploring the role of storytelling in independent British professional wrestling (Loughborough University). While completing his doctoral research, Sam was employed as a Research Fellow by Roehampton University. In this role he worked on ‘Box Office Bears: Animal baiting in early modern England’, which is a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project bringing together researchers from the Universities of Nottingham, Roehampton and Oxford and project partner Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA).  

Sam’s doctoral research explored professional wrestling as a storytelling art and was based on his first-hand experience of working in the UK independent wrestling industry. He specialises in interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to research as well as practice-based and practice informed research methods. As well as professional wrestling, his wider research interests include performance studies, and physical culture – which includes various forms of combat, but also sports like bodybuilding and weightlifting. He is also interested in adaptive sport, digital storytelling, theatre, and disability politics and arts practice. 

Sam has spent over a decade working in the arts and culture sector as a contemporary art curator and freelance creative producer specialising in performance art. Achievements include a five-year stint as Exhibitions Officer at the University of Leicester’s Attenborough Arts Centre where he curated major group exhibitions on subjects including disability and ecology, and solo exhibitions by artists including Laura Swanson, Aaron Williamson, and Amartey Golding.

Sam is a co-founder of Wrestling Resurgence which is a theatre-led independent wrestling promotion based in the East Midlands. Resurgence was founded in 2017 by arts professionals and theatre scholars. Alongside delivering commercial live events (27 and counting), Resurgence have initiated, facilitated, and contributed to several collaborative projects, securing funding from ‘Being Human: Festival of Humanities Research’, Loughborough University, De Montford University, University of Leicester, and the British Academy. Spanning from Resurgence, Sam has been awarded four Project Grants by Arts Council England (2018, 2019, 2021, 2023) for a range of activities including documentary films, live events and publications.   

West, S. (2023). Cults of personality: the micro-celebrity work of independent professional wrestlers. Celebrity Studies, 15(1), 73–87. DOI: 10.1080/19392397.2023.2295767