Class

Course Description | Syllabus

Course Description

Course: EXP 91F The Globalization of Sport: An Inquiry into Politics, Economics, Culture and Ethics Lecturer: Sherman Teichman M/W, 4-6:00 pm, Tisch Library Media Center Through the prisms of international relations, social history, economics, anthropology, cultural studies, philosophy, science, and literature, EPIIC will provide a critical, comparative insight into sport and international athletic competition. The Sydney 2000 Olympic games will convene against the backdrop of ongoing revelations of International Olympic Committee political in-fighting and corruption. Historic adversaries -- Japan and Korea -- will co-host the 2002 World Cup soccer finals. In Cuba, Castro's government faces the continuing defection of some of its most prominent athletes. South Africa has ordered the integration of its rugby teams. In the U.S., controversy over the impact of Title IX persists in the aftermath of the U.S. Women's Team World Cup victory. What is the historical interplay of ideology, politics, and athletics? In the context of the political use and abuse of sport, what are the relationships between sport and foreign and domestic policies, from ping-pong diplomacy in China to the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, from the recent U.S.-Iran wrestling competition to the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics? This course also will explore sport in the context of conflict, conflict resolution, and social integration. How do sports influence, and how are they influenced by, identity, nationalism, class, race, ethnicity, gender, and religion? EPIIC will consider the politics of race and the use of sport as racial competition, from South Africa to the Caribbean. Among the course's other concerns will be: the global economics of sport, including monopoly capitalism, international marketing, labor relations, gambling, and corruption; athletic talent migration; the potential for enhancement or "dehumanization" through genetic engineering and hormonal manipulation; the changing ethics of competition; the global diffusion of Western modern sports and the impact on indigenous traditions, such as Afghan buzkashi and Nuban wrestling; violence; and the roles of media and popular culture.

Syllabus

Texts this year included the following:

Baseball on the Border: A Tale of Two Laredos,by Alan Klein
Beyond the Ring,by Jeffrey Sammons
Civilization of the Ancient and Mediterranean: Greece and Rome,edited by Michael Grant and Rachel Kitzinger
The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature and Modern American Culture,by Gerald Early
Darwin's Athletes, by John Hoberman
Emperors and Gladiators,by Thomas Wiedemann
Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism,by Allen Guttmann
Greek Athletics and the Genesis of Sport,by David Sansone
Kenyan Running: Movement Culture, Geography and Global Change,by John Bale and Joe Sang
Little Big Men,by Alan Klein
Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport,by John Hoberman The Politics of International Sportby Wallace Irwin, Jr.
Power, Politics and the Olympic Games,by Alfred Sen
Race and Sport,by Jeffrey Sammons
Soccer in Sun and Shadow,by Eduardo Galeano
Sport, Culture and Politics,edited by J.C. Infield and John Stevenson
Sport and Political Ideology,by John Hoberman