America's Game(s): A Critical Anthropology of Sport / Edition 1

by Benjamin Eastman, Michael Ralph, Sean Brown

Overview

This insightful volume considers how to locate America in the sporting world: in the traditions and rituals of a national pastime or in the baseball academies run by American professional teams in the Dominican Republic? With the athletes that carry a flag in Olympic ceremonies or among the executives in the boardrooms of Nike? The contributors argue that 'America' is located in these familiar sites and practices but also and increasingly in these novel contexts, where the bodies, strategies, and aspirations of others are becoming subject to American ludic, agonistic, and moral orders. Collectively, their contention is that American sports as a category needs to be reconsidered, to take into account the extensive networks of expertise, finance, and performance moving out from American athletic institutions as well as the ever increasing influx of talent coming from abroad that sustains American collegiate and professional athletics.

As America strives to balance cosmopolitan objectives with resurgent nationalism, it is critical to consider 'American sports' from within and without. This book will be of great interest to scholars of culture, politics, and sport.

This book was previously published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415494571
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/20/2009
Series:	Sport in the Global Society
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Benjamin Eastman is a PhD candidate in socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on contemporary Cuban society and politics and in particular the relationships between sports, nationalism, and the transition to post-socialism in Cuba. Sean Brown is a PhD student in sociology at Northeastern University. Michael Ralph is a PhD candidate in socio-cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on contemporary Senegal, in particular the prominence of sport in Senegalese encounters with globalization and neo-liberal reforms.

Table of Contents

1. American Baseball Fans in Havana, Cuba 2. American Football in Europe 3. Basketball in Senegal 4. American Sport, Baseball 5. Olympism and American Sport 6. Baseball in the Dominican Republic 7. Golf in America 8. Sport and the South Asian Diaspora in America 9. Native American Sport 10. American Sports Fanaticism: A View from the Bleachers