Providing a Path for Lifelong Learning
This past spring, I taught a class on Popular Sport & the Modern World, with a pretty wide brief... the basic outlines of the class held our discussions to the mid-nineteenth century and later, but we read and discussed topics from the emergence of association football in industrial England to segregation in American baseball to… Continue reading Chasing History: Industrialization and Sport
We are coming to the end of the term here at Centre College, with commencement only a few days away. This semester has proved to be very, very busy for us here. I have been completely wrapped up in my new class "Popular Sport and the Modern World." I had buckets of fun, and was… Continue reading Popular Sport and the Modern World
This week in my class on popular sport and the modern world, we are discussing Brazilian soccer. In particular, we are moving towards discussions of cultural representations of “samba football” within and outside of Brazil. Our reading, Howard Goldblatt’s Futebol Nation, makes some fascinating arguments about the connections between the evolution and celebration of Brazilian… Continue reading Futebol Nation
Last week in my class on the history of popular sport in the modern world, we looked at Gaelic Games and the interaction of sport and nationalist identity in twentieth century Ireland. Following from previous weeks, when we discussed how segregation mitigated baseball’s claim to being the American Pastime and manifestations of religious tensions in… Continue reading The West’s Awake
In honor of our podcast coming out tomorrow, here are a few links to good reads about the olympics: Why are Jamaican runners so good? This article tackles some of the historical and cultural issues embedded in that question. Skis are more than 4,000 years old. And according to this piece they have changed a… Continue reading Olympic Roundup
This week in my upper division class on the history of popular sport in the modern world, we are talking about working class culture in nineteenth century Britain and the development of professional association football (soccer, to my students). In Britain today, soccer retains the aura of a working class sport, albeit one under assault.… Continue reading British Football and Working Class Culture
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