Discipline and Indulgence: College Football, Media, and the American Way of Life during the Cold War

by Jeffrey Montez de Oca

Overview

Winner of the 2014 North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS) Outstanding Book Award

The early Cold War (1947-1964) was a time of optimism in America. Flushed with confidence by the Second World War, many heralded the American Century and saw postwar affluence as proof that capitalism would solve want and poverty. Yet this period also filled people with anxiety. Beyond the specter of nuclear annihilation, the consumerism and affluence of capitalism’s success were seen as turning the sons of pioneers into couch potatoes.

In Discipline and Indulgence, Jeffrey Montez de Oca demonstrates how popular culture, especially college football, addressed capitalism’s contradictions by integrating men into the economy of the Cold War as workers, warriors, and consumers. In the dawning television age, college football provided a ritual and spectacle of the American way of life that anyone could participate in from the comfort of his own home. College football formed an ethical space of patriotic pageantry where men could produce themselves as citizens of the Cold War state. Based on a theoretically sophisticated analysis of Cold War media, Discipline and Indulgence assesses the period’s institutional linkage of sport, higher education, media, and militarism and finds the connections of contemporary sport media to today’s War on Terror.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813561271
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	07/31/2013
Series:	Critical Issues in Sport and Society
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	188
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

JEFFREY MONTEZ DE OCA is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
2. Fortifying the City upon a Hill: College Football and Cold War Citizenship
3. Duck Walking the Couch Potato: Exercise as Therapy for a Consumer Society
4. The Best Seat in the Ballpark: Lifestyle and the Televisual Event
5. Fordism in the Airwaves: The NCAA's Use of Market Regulations to Control College Athletics
6. From Neighborhood to Nation: Geographical Imagination of the Cold War in Sports Illustrated
7. Conclusion

Appendix: Note on Methodology
Notes
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Discipline and Indulgence is a superb illustration of how sport creates, maintains, and reinforces shared meanings, identities, norms, and other important aspects of culture. Filled with rich data from of a wide variety of primary sources, the author produced a theoretically sound and thorough analysis of college football and the American way of life during the early Cold War."

American Journal of Sociology

"Montez de Oca analyzes the relationships between sport, militarism, and US nationalism in very compelling ways, breaking new ground in the understanding of everyday social organization and significance. Recommended."

Choice

"Theoretically grounded and empirically rich, this book breaks new ground: moving beyond traditional football histories, Montez de Oca investigates everyday engagements with popular social structures and meanings."

Department of Kinesiology and Health, Miami University - Mary G. McDonald

"Discipline and Indulgence is a concise, well-researched, and compelling work that highlights important themes of twentieth-century American history."

H-War

"Discipline and Indulgence provides an effective exploration of the way that seemingly mundane activities like football actually contain immense cultural significance ... Montez de Oca adds a valuable contribution to the growing body of Cold War scholarship by emphasizing the role of sport—particularly college football—in linking identities, bodies, and politics for Americans."

Gender & Society

"This is an important, compelling, and cogently argued analysis of the complex relationship among sport, militarism, and American nationalism during the Cold War era."

Physical Cultural Studies, Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland - David L. Andrews

"The book is an accessible and well-written blend of history and sociology and contributes important new perspectives to the scholarly understanding of college football, masculinity, politics, and media during the Cold War."

Journal of American Culture

"Discipline and Indulgence provides an effective exploration of the way that seemingly mundane activities like football actually contain immense cultural significance ... Montez de Oca adds a valuable contribution to the growing body of Cold War scholarship by emphasizing the role of sport—particularly college football—in linking identities, bodies, and politics for Americans."

From the Publisher