Dr. Springwood graduated from the University of Illinois in 1994 with a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology. His special areas of interest include semiotics, race, gender, visual culture, colonialism, ethnographic methods, sport, and alcohol usage. He has conducted research in Japan, Mexico, and the United States. The author or co-author of four books, including Beyond the Cheers: Race as Spectacle in College Sport (Suny Press), and he edited Open Fire: Understanding Global Gun Cultures (Berg), a volume on guns and their use in various societies around the world.