Sports & Society

3 units

Commercialized spectator sports are a hugely influential part of American culture, politics, and economics. However, the story of how they got that way is too often assumed to be straightforward and self-evident. In this course, we will complicate such assumptions by examining the complex cultural web of American sports history and exploring the people, power structures, and social contexts in which our athletic games have developed, from the Civil War to the present. We will pay particular attention to matters of gender and race in traversing these histories, and students will be asked to consider the ramifications of sociocultural development in sports for American culture at large (and vice versa). Among the topics in sport that we will consider in detail are amateurism, commercialization, masculinity, mass mediation, and violence. We will analyze particular athletes of significance from the last 150 years, including Jack Johnson, Althea Gibson, Muhammad Ali, Serena Williams, Michael Jordan, and others. At the same time, we will examine the forms of media that shape our narratives and understandings of the competitions we consume. In addition, we will consider transnational competitions like the Olympics, which bring American conflicts over race and gender into a global context. No prior sports knowledge is necessary to enroll in the class. Students put themselves on the waitlist and will be enrolled manually by the registrar. Five seats are reserved for each class year for a total of 20 students. This course is affiliated with Sports & Society: Culture, Power, and Identity, an American Culture Studies program initiative focused on the intersections of athletics, identity, and social power.