Even though March Madness is officially over, I still have sports on my mind. The Olympic Torch has passed through North America, and we are reminded that sports do not operate in a vacuum. There are many issues that intersect and complicate our enjoyment of watching athletes test the limits of the human body and compete against one another. These books hopefully will add to this continuing conversation!
- Sport Stars: The Cultural Politics of Sporting Celebrity
- Sport Stars investigates the nature of the contemporary sports celebrity, examining stars' often turbulent relationship with the media and the sporting establishment. Specific stars including Michael Jordan, Venus Williams and David Beckham are highlighted. These contributors examine the cultural, political, economic and technological forces which combine to produce the sports celebrity, and discuss the individual forms of fame each star experiences. (Adapted from the book description.)
- Call Number: GV706.5 .S77 2001
- Interested in knowing a little more? Read reviews at Amazon
- Consuming Sport: Fans, Sport and Culture
- Consuming Sport addresses how sport is experienced and engaged within the everyday lives of its fans. How does one become a sport fan and how does this involvement develop over lifetimes? Garry Crawford explores how authenticity, tradition, and locality intersect with sports, as well as how mass media and merchandising influence patterns of loyalty. (Adapted from the book description.)
- Call Number: GV715 .C73 2004
- Interested in knowing a little more? Read reviews at Amazon
- Sport and Postcolonialism
- Sport was a major tool of colonial power. Postcolonialism manifests itself in the modern sporting world in several ways, including the huge number of world class athletes from former European empires and the exploitation of child-workers in postcolonial nations by the sporting goods industries. This book explores the wealth of issues and experiences that comprise the postcolonial sporting world and questions whether sport can act as a form of resistance in postcolonial states and, if so, how such resistance might manifest itself in the rule-bound culture of sport. (Taken from the book description.)
- Call Number: GV706.5 .S66 2003
- Interested in knowing a little more? Read reviews at Amazon
- In the Game: Gay Athletes and the Cult of Masculinity
- Using interviews with openly gay and closeted team-sport athletes, Eric Anderson examines how homophobia is reproduced in sport, how gay male athletes navigate this, and how American masculinity is changing. By detailing individual experiences, Anderson shows how these athletes are emerging from their athletic closets and contesting the dominant norms of masculinity. From the locker rooms of high school sports, where the atmosphere of "don't ask, don't tell" often exists, to the unique circumstances that gay athletes encounter in professional team sports, this book analyzes the agency that openly gay athletes possess to change their environments. (Taken from the book description.)
- Call Number: GV708.8 .A43 2005
- Interested in knowing a little more? Read reviews at Amazon
- Sport and Gender Identities: Masculinities, Femininities, and Sexualities
- This book brings together gender studies and sexuality studies to provide original and critical insights on identity formation within a wide range of sport-related relations and practices. The authors draw on key contemporary theoretical debates concerning gender, sport and identity that have been developed in a range of disciplines and subject fields including sociology, social and cultural geography, media studies and management studies. (Taken from the book description.)
- Call Number: GV708.8 .S657 2007
- Interested in knowing a little more? Read reviews at Amazon
