Fall 2024 History UN2587 section 001

SPORT&SOCIETY IN THE AMERICAS

SPORT&SOCIETY IN THE AMER

Call Number 10476
Day & Time
Location
TR 10:10am-11:25am
702 Hamilton Hall
Points 4
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Frank Guridy
Type LECTURE
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description

This course explores the ways organized sport constitutes and disrupts dominant understandings of nation, race, gender, and sexuality throughout the Americas. Working from the notion that sport is “more than a game,” the class will examine the social, cultural and political impact of sports in a variety of hemispheric American contexts from the 19th century until the present. While our primary geographic focus will be the United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean, the thrust of the course encourages students to consider sports in local, national, and transnational contexts.  The guiding questions of the course are: What is the relationship between sport and society? How does sport inform political transformations within and across national borders? How does sport reinforce and/or challenge social hierarchies? Can sport provide alternative visions of the self and community? Throughout the semester we will examine such topics as: the continuing political struggles surrounding the staging of mega-events such as the Olympics and World Cup, the role of professional baseball in the rise and fall of Jim Crow segregation, the impact of football on the evolution of masculine identities in the U.S., the impact of tennis on the Second-Wave feminist movement, and the role of sports in the growth of modern American cities. Course materials include works by historians, sociologists, social theorists, and journalists who have also been key contributors to the burgeoning field of sports studies. Thus, the course has three objectives:

1) To deepen our understanding of the relationship between sport and society

2) To encourage students to examine the sporting world beyond the frame of the nation-state

3) To consider the promises and challenges of sport as a site of social theory and knowledge production

Web Site Vergil
Department History
Enrollment 49 students (70 max) as of 9:07PM Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Subject History
Number UN2587
Section 001
Division Interfaculty
Note DISCUSSION HIST UN2588 REQUIRED
Section key 20243HIST2587W001