The killings of nine Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church members in Charleston, South Carolina, have ignited a cultural clash over the symbolic nature of the Confederate Flag, of which shooter Dylann Roof proudly raised in pictures taken before the murders. Scores of written, aural, and visual news stories subsequently have been produced to identify the…
The NFL: Critical and Cultural Perspectives. Eds. Thomas P. Oates and Zack Furness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2014. Pp. 268. Forward, contributors list, and index. Paper: $29.95, cloth: $69.50, e-book: $29.95. Reviewed by Andrew D. Linden Two weeks ago, I flipped through various television channels, eventually landing on the NFL Network. While nearly two months removed…
Over the past two months, the momentum of the opposition to Boston hosting the Olympic Games spurred me while the narratives coming out about Rio sparked Matt Holder to write pieces about the Olympics for this blog. Matt summarized his article on media narratives with the statement: “…we see that media narratives care less about…
This is part 2 in a series of posts that explore the questions and issues of preparing a sport history course. The first post introduced the course and discussed selecting books and other materials. This post explores issues of organization and choosing what to include. The series’ final post will appear on July 20, and will…
Here in the US Midwest (Iowa to be exact) full-fledged summer is now less than one week away. Okay, so most folks would probably say it already is summer. The kids are out of school, pools are open, farmer’s markets and arts festivals are packed with leisurely loungers, and it has already hit 90 degrees.…
Released in 2007, Pride — a historical sport film about “the first black swim team” — came out during the same time as similar films (Coach Carter (2005), Glory Road (2006), The Express (2008)) also focusing on relationships between race and sport. It also primarily focuses on one individual (Coach Jim Ellis, played by Terrence Howard) in telling the story of how…
Sandwiched between pop culture quizzes and cat videos, fitspirational images litter the internet. These fitspirational images combine pictures of fit-looking white women clad only in short spandex shorts, sports bra, tank top, and long pony-tail with short “just do it”-type taglines to purportedly provide fitness motivation while ushering in a new era for women and their bodies. Fitspirational…
by Adam Park If Floyd Mayweather, Jr. is to be reckoned among the greatest pugilists of all time, it is only because his predecessors did much of the learning for him. In other words, he’s good because others were good before him. But the sweet science has changed a great deal over the millennia. Though…
The Set-Up Men: Race, Culture, and Resistance in Black Baseball. By Sarah Trembanis. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2014. Pp. 240. Softcover. $35.00). Reviewed by Josh Howard. One of my favorite sports films growing up was The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings. It’s a comedy from 1976, featuring three major African-American Hollywood stars: Billy…
Sport in American History 