Sport in the Global Society - Contemporary Perspectives
2 total works
The Making of Sporting Cultures presents an analysis of western sport by examining how the collective passions and feelings of people have contributed to the making of sport as a ‘way of life’. The popularity of sport is so pronounced in some cases that we speak of certain sports as ‘national pastimes’. Baseball in the United States, soccer in Britain and cricket in the Caribbean are among the relevant examples discussed.
Rather than regarding the historical development of sport as the outcome of passive spectator reception, this work is interested in how sporting cultures have been made and developed over time through the active engagement of its enthusiasts. This is to study the history of sport not only ‘from below’, but also ‘from within’, as a means to understanding the ‘deep relationship’ between sport and people within class contexts – the middle class as well as the working class. Contestation over the making of sport along axes of race, gender and class are discussed where relevant. A range of cultural writers and theorists are examined in regard to both how their writing can help us understand the making of sport and as to how sport might be located within an overall cultural context – in different places and times.
The book will appeal to students and academics within humanities disciplines such as cultural studies, history and sociology and to those in sport studies programmes interested in the historical, cultural and social aspects of sport.
This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.
The 'beautiful game', a term commonly associated with Pele but traceable to his Brazilian national team predecessor Zidi, is now widely accepted as a descriptor of the world's most popular sport. But to suggest that football is beautiful is to raise a number of questions pertinent to a range of academic fields including, but not exhausting, philosophy, history, art theory, sociology and cultural studies. This original academic work will comprehensively - across these and related disciplinary fields - enquire into how the lofty claim for football as 'the beautiful game' can be substantiated. Essays will be divided into three sections: football as art; football in art, football and art. Specific questions to be addressed will include - can football be considered as an art form; does the sport contain aesthetic properties in the manner of ballet; do coaching tactics impede the artistry of football players; are football fans comparable to art connoisseurs; how has football been represented within painting and sculpture; how does football stand in relation to the arts within the contemporary field of cultural policy? The volume will be of interest to scholars and students within the above mentioned disciplinary areas and will make an important contribution to developing an intellectual bridge between fields of human expression that were once considered as dissimilar as chalk and cheese.
This book was published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.