Schedule of Topics and Readings
> (CT) readings are from the 3 course textbooks required for this class.
Go to… Week Two / Three / Four / Five / Six / Seven / Eight / Nine / Ten / Eleven / Twelve / Thirteen / Fourteen / Fifteen / Final Exam
UNIT ONE: Where are We Now?: Current Issues in Sports Across the Americas
Week One (Aug 17 / 19)
Introduction: Course, WordPress, Zotero
- Course Overview – WordPress – Zotero (see email)
Week Two (Aug 25 / 27)
Sports History: Views from Historians
Read the TWO selections assigned to your group—either the Tuesday or Thursday group. You will read these ahead of our class meeting, and also complete relevant blog-discussant assignments. In other words, our in-class discussions are the final word because you have already read them, and blogged/commented on them. [Follow this model each week.]
- All – Moore, Louis. “When I Fell in Love with Sports History.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 34, no. 5–6 (April 13, 2017): 405–8. doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2017.1372426.
- Group A (A): Howard, Josh. “Clifton Forge and Back Again.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 34, no. 5–6 (2017): 340–45. doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2017.1383394.
- Group B (B): Anderson, Patricia. “On Searching for the Latin American Sportswoman and Finding an Argentine Sports Historian.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 34, no. 5–6 (2017): 315–19. doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2017.1342625.
Week Three (Sep 1 / Sep 3)
Sports in the Age of COVID-19 / College Sports in the U.S.
- All – Wood, Jesse. “App State’s Rich Soccer Tradition…Was the Golden Era Pushed to the Wayside?” High Country Magazine 11, no. 2 (October/November 2015), pp. 8, 18-32. [Private Readings page]
- All – Joyce, Ethan. “Former App State Coaches, Players Come to Terms with the Cutting of Their Programs.” Winston-Salem Journal, May 29, 2020, Online edition, sec. Sports. journalnow.com/sports/college/asu/former-app-state-coaches-players-come-to-terms-with-the-cutting-of-their-programs/article_f1555a67-a94d-5fe0-9d3d-19a8a5060a31.html
- A: Dzikus, Lars. “A World without Sports.” The Conversation, April 7, 2020, sec. Arts + Culture. http://theconversation.com/a-world-without-sports-134964.
- B: McGregor, Andrew. “Covid-19 Presents an Ideal Time to Rethink College Sports.” Sport in American History (blog), May 27, 2020. https://ussporthistory.com/2020/05/26/covid-19-presents-an-ideal-time-to-rethink-college-sports.
Week Four (Sep 8 / 10)
Protests & Activism in Sports
- All: Townsend, Stephen, Gary Osmond, and Murray G. Phillips. “‘Where Cassius Clay Ends, Muhammad Ali Begins’: Sportspeople, Political Activism, and Methodology.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 35, no. 11 (2018): 1149–75. doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2018.1523146.
- All: Baumann, Michael. “Nike’s Big Gamble on Colin Kaepernick.” The Ringer (September 4, 2018). Online. Marta https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/9/4/17821252/nike-nfl-colin-kaepernick-business-politics
- All: Find your own to add to the blog post & discussion (provide URL link in the blog post)
UNIT TWO: Early History of American Sports & Construction of Identities
Week Five (Sep 15 / 17)
Muscular Christianity & the British/US Missionaries of Sport
- All: (CT) Miller, Patrick. “The Manly, the Moral, and the Proficient: College Sport in the New South.” The Sporting World of the Modern South, edited by Patrick Miller. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. [Chapter 1]
- A: Mangan, J. A. “The Early Evolution of Modern Sport in Latin America: A Mainly English Middle-Class Inspiration?” The International Journal of the History of Sport 18, no. 3 (2001): 9–42. doi.org/10.1080/714001585.
- A: Dishon, Gideon. “Games of Character: Team Sports, Games, and Character Development in Victorian Public Schools, 1850–1900.” Paedagogica Historica 53, no. 4 (2017): 364–80. doi.org/10.1080/00309230.2016.1270339.
- B: Guedes, Claudia. “‘Changing the Cultural Landscape’: English Engineers, American Missionaries, and the YMCA Bring Sports to Brazil – the 1870s to the 1930s.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 28, no. 17 (2011): 2594–2608. doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2011.627200.
- B: Sotomayor, Antonio. “The Triangle of Empire: Sport, Religion, and Imperialism in Puerto Rico’s YMCA, 1898–1926.” The Americas 74, no. 4 (2017): 481–512. doi.org/10.1017/tam.2017.86
Week Six (Sep 22 / 24)
Early Soccer History
- A: (All 3 articles) Allaway, Roger. “A Stumbling Start for U.S. Pro Soccer.” Society for American Soccer History (December 2, 2015). Online. http://www.ussoccerhistory.org/a-stumbling-start-for-u-s-pro-soccer — AND — Farnsworth, Ed. “USA vs. Mexico and the ‘Little Truck’.” Society for American Soccer History (October 8, 2015). Online. http://www.ussoccerhistory.org/1934-usa-mexico-and-the-little-truck/ —- AND —- Kay, Stanley. “Pastor Keeps History of Storied U.S. Club Bethlehem Steel Alive.” Sports Illustrated (August 3, 2017). Online. https://www.si.com/soccer/2017/08/03/bethlehem-steel-pastor-dan-morrison-us-soccer
- A: Logan, Gabe. “C’mon, You Reds: The U.S. Communist Party’s Workers’ Soccer Association, 1927–35.” Journal of Sport History 44, no. 3 (2017): 384–98. doi.org/10.5406/jsporthistory.44.3.0384.
- B: Kittelson, Roger. The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014, Introduction & Chapter 2.
Week Seven Discussion (Sep 29 / Oct 1)
Early Baseball History
- All: González Echevarría, Roberto. The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999—Pages 75-111. [Chapter 4]
- A: (CT) Gumstead, Robert. “Baseball, the Lost Cause, and the New South in Richmond, Virginia.” The Sporting World of the Modern South, edited by Patrick Miller. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. [Chapter 2]
- B: Park, Roberta J. “From La Bomba to Béisbol: Sport and the Americanisation of Puerto Rico, 1898–1950.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 28, no. 17 (2011): 2575–2593. doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2011.627199
Week Eight Discussion (Oct 6 / 8)
National & Ethnic Identity in Sports
- A: (CT) Rein, Raanan. “People of the Book or People of the (Foot)Ball?: On the Pitch with the Fans of Atlanta in Buenos Aires.” Sports Culture in Latin American History. [Chapter 5]
- B: Bocketti, Gregg P. “Italian Immigrants, Brazilian Football, and the Dilemma of National Identity.” Journal of Latin American Studies 40, no. 02 (2008): 275–302. www.jstor.org/stable/40056663.
Week Nine Discussion (Oct 13 / 15)
Sport & Race
- A: (CT) Sheinin, David. “Boxing in the Making of a Costeño” Sports Culture in Latin American History. [Chapter 7]
- A: Richey, Jeffrey. “The Macaquitos Affair: Soccer, Blackness, and Brazil as Argentina’s Racial Other, 1919-1929.” Radical History Review no. 125 (2016): 116-136. ISSN 0163-6545.
- B: Scott, Jermaine. “‘A Black School Is Not Supposed to Win’: Black Teamwork at Howard University, 1970–74.” Journal of Sport History 46, no. 3 (November 7, 2019): 347–62. https://muse-jhu-edu.proxy006.nclive.org/article/738515.
- B: Nelson, Emalee. “Cuban Babe (Ruth): The Story of Seven Cubana Women in Professional Baseball.” Sport in American History (2016): Online. https://ussporthistory.com/2016/10/17/cuban-babe-ruth-the-story-of-seven-cubana-women-in-professional-baseball
UNIT THREE: Bodies as Contested Spaces
Week Ten Discussion (Oct 20 / 22)
Masculinity & Femininity
- A: (CT) Liberti, Rita. “‘We Were Ladies, We Just Played Like Boys’: African American Women and Competitive Basketball at Bennett College, 1928-42.” The Sporting World of the Modern South, edited by Patrick Miller. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002. [Chapter 6]
- A: Gils, Bieke. “Flying, Flirting, and Flexing: Charmion’s Trapeze Act, Sexuality, and Physical Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” Journal of Sport History 41 no. 2 (Summer 2014), 251-268. https://muse-jhu-edu.proxy006.nclive.org/article/557776.
- B: (CT) Donoghue, Michael. “Roberto Durán, Omar Torrijos, and the Rise of Isthmian Machismo.” Sports Culture in Latin American History. [Chapter 1]
- B: (CT) Owenby, Ted. “Manhood, Memory, and White Men’s Sports in the American South.” The Sporting World of the Modern South. [Chapter 13]
Week Eleven Discussion (Oct 27 / 29)
Challenges to Gendered Norms / Sport, Physicality, Violence, and the Body as a Contested Space
- All: Taylor, Katie. “‘Here’s the Football Heroine’: Female American Football Players, 1890–1912.” Sport in History (2020). DOI: 10.1080/17460263.2020.1814399
- CHOOSE …
- A: (CT) Wesolowski, Katya. “From ‘Moral Disease’ to ‘National Sport’: Race, Nation, and Capoeira in Brazil.” Sports Culture in Latin American History. [Chapter 8] ….. OR …..
- A: Andrade Franco, Roberto José. “Sparring in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt, Race, and Boxing.” Sport in American History (November 2016). Online. https://ussporthistory.com/2016/11/21/sparring-in-the-white-house-theodore-roosevelt-race-and-boxing
- CHOOSE …
- B: (CT) Kyriakoudes, Louis M. and Peter A. Coclanis. “‘The Tennessee Test of Manhood’: Professional Wrestling and Southern Cultural Stereotypes.” The Sporting World of the Modern South. [Chapter 11] .…. OR …..
- B: (CT) Lehman, Ken. “Fighting on the Edge: Cholitas Luchadoras in Bolivia’s Cholo” Sports Culture in Latin American History. [Chapter 2]
Week Twelve Discussion (Nov 3 / 5)
Fútbolera: A Discussion
- All: (CT) Elsey, Brenda and Joshua Nadel. Fútbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019. [Zoom session with authors on Nov 5th – entire class meets online on Thursday only for book discussion]
UNIT FOUR: Sports in the Modern South, U.S., and the Americas
Week Thirteen Discussion (Nov 10 / 12)
U.S.-Latin American Relations in Sports
- A: Leal, Eduardo. “Bolivian Ball.” Roads & Kingdoms (2015).
- A: Ruck, Rob. Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game. Boston: Beacon Press, 2011. [Chapter 6 – ¡Viva México!]
- B: Rodriguez, Alicia. “Borderball with Club Tijuana.” Roads & Kingdoms (2014).
- B: Wood, Michael T. “Defenders of National Honor: Club Atlético de Cuba Tigres in Prerevolutionary Cuban Gridiron Football.” Journal of Sport History 47, no. 1 (2020): 40–58. DOI: jsporthistory.47.1.0040.
Week Fourteen Discussion (Nov 17 / 19)
Political Uses of Sports / Sports in the Modern U.S. South
- All: Thompson, Wright. “While the World Watched.” ESPN (June 9, 2014)
- All: Teitelbaum, Ben and Priya Desai. “A Dream Re-Routed: Deported Maryland Brothers Seek Options, Play on After Being Banished.” Sports Illustrated (February 27, 2018). Online. https://www.si.com/soccer/2018/02/27/lizandro-claros-saravia-deportation-ice-daca-trump-usa-nicaragua-el-salvador
- A: Schelfhout, Sam, and John Fair. “Lifting ‘Round the World’: The Goodwill Weightlifting Tours of 1955.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 35, no. 10 (2018): 1008–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2019.1576637.
- B: (CT) Rybacki, Karyn Charles and Donald Jay Ribacki. “The King, the Young Prince, and the Last Confederate Soldier: NASCAR on the Cusp.” The Sporting World of the Modern South. [Chapter 12]
Week Fifteen Discussion (Nov 24 – Zoom only for all participants)
Course Wrap-Up / Digital Project Presentations 2.0 (Final)
If needed, choose ONE SPORT/TOPIC for final blogging assignment … or, for Extra Credit (3 pts.):
Challenging Gendered Norms
- Oxenham, Gwendolyn. “‘Pele With a Skirt’: The Unequal Fortunes of Brazil’s Soccer Stars.” The Atlantic (June 4, 2015). Online. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/06/neymar-marta-world-cup-brazil/394856
- Wallace, Amy. “Lady Leadfoot.” Sports Illustrated (October 29, 2018). Online. https://www.si.com/racing/2018/10/29/denise-mccluggage-racing-driver-journalist
Canada
- Bourgon, Lyndsie. “Rezball Revival.” Roads & Kingdoms (2014).
- Mothe, Peter. “All-Native Soccer Team Gets Ready to Represent Canada at World’s First Indigenous Games.” The Georgia Straight (May 19, 2015). Online. https://www.straight.com/news/453271/all-native-soccer-team-gets-ready-represent-canada-worlds-first-indigenous-games
Soccer (Argentina)
- O’Hanion, Ryan. “The History of Lionel Messi and Argentina vs. the World Cup.” The Ringer (June 13, 2018). Online. https://www.theringer.com/2018/6/13/17456820/2018-world-cup-lionel-messi-history-maradona-barcelona
- Phillips, Brian. “The Two Sides of Diego Maradona.” The Ringer, October 1, 2019. https://www.theringer.com/2019/10/1/20891805/diego-maradona-hand-of-god-argentina-world-cup.
Soccer (Brazil & Uruguay)
- Thompson, Wright. “Portrait of a Serial Winner: A Journey in Pursuit of Luis Suárez, Who – When He-s Not Biting Opponents – Is the Most Beautiful Player in the Game.” ESPN[dot]com (May 27, 2014).
- Phillips, Brian. “Diamonds in the Rough.” Grantland (June 10, 2014).
Soccer (USA)
- Harris, Daniel. “Remembering U.S. Soccer’s Greatest, Most Improbable Triumph.” The Ringer (January 14, 2019). Online. https://www.theringer.com/soccer/2019/1/14/18178829/usa-england-1950-world-cup
- Echegaray, Luis Miguel. “Jonathan Gonzalez on U.S. Soccer and the Importance of Showing Up.” Sports Illustrated (September 27, 2018). Online. https://www.si.com/soccer/2018/09/27/jonathan-gonzalez-mexico-usa-us-soccer-alianza-futbol
Football
- Aguilar, Kate. “From Superman to Just a “Boy”: Why a “Discussion” of Race, Sport, and Cam Newton Still Matters.” Sport in American History (February 11, 2016).
- Lukas, Paul. “3 Days That Rocked the World of Native American Sports Imagery.” UniWatch. Accessed July 6, 2020. https://uni-watch.com/2020/07/06/3-days-that-rocked-the-world-of-native-american-sports-imagery/.
Basketball
- Ariail, Cat. “Steph Curry…The “Male Machine Gun Molly”?: Gender and Styles of Play in Modern Basketball.” Sport in American History (May 12, 2016)
- Parrish, Alex. “God’s Work: Hakeem Olajuwon, Islam, and the Role of Religion in American Athletics.” Sport in American History (November 19, 2015)
Baseball
- Caspian King, Jay. “The Unbearable Whiteness of Baseball.” The New York Times (April 6, 2016). Online. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/magazine/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-baseball.html?_r=0
- Barry, Michael T. “Time to Cancel 2020 Baseball Season: A Lesson for Colleges and Universities.” Sport in American History (blog), August 2, 2020. https://ussporthistory.com/2020/08/02/time-to-cancel-2020-baseball-season-a-lesson-for-colleges-and-universities/.
Business of Sports
- Belson, Ken. “Building a Stadium, Rebuilding a Neighborhood (Arthur Blank & the Atlanta Falcons)” The New York Times, January 12, 2017.
- Yoesting, Travis. “Why MLS Expansion Fees Are So Damn High But Also Kind Of A Great Deal.” The18, December 17, 2019. https://the18.com/soccer-news/why-mls-expansion-fees-are-so-high-charlotte.
North Carolina
- Cuadros, Paul. “We Play Too: Latina Integration through Soccer in the ‘New South.’” Southeastern Geographer 51, no. 2 (June 17, 2011): 227–41. https://doi.org/10.1353/sgo.2011.0021.
- Lourim, Jake. “Appalachian State Isn’t Just That Small School That Beat Michigan Anymore.” FiveThirtyEight (blog), October 31, 2019. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/appalachian-state-isnt-just-that-small-school-that-beat-michigan-anymore/.
Tennis
- Rankine, Claudia. “The Meaning of Serena Williams.” The New York Times (Aug 25, 2015). Online. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-meaning-of-serena-williams.html
- Titman, Nathan. “Taking Punishment Gladly: Bill Tilden’s Performances of the Unruly Male Body.” Journal of Sport History 41 no. 3 (Fall 2014), 447-466. https://www-jstor-org.proxy006.nclive.org/stable/10.5406/jsporthistory.41.3.447
Sex & Abuses of Power in Sports
- Grigoriadis, Vanessa. ““This Is Bigger Than Myself”: How the Women of the U.S. Gymnastics Team Found Their Voice.” Hive – Vanity Fair (May 29, 2018). Online. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/05/how-the-women-of-the-us-gymnastics-team-found-their-voice
- McNear, Claire. “Don’t Dismiss the Washington Football Report as Just Another Problem With the Franchise.” The Ringer, July 17, 2020. https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2020/7/17/21329064/washington-football-report-sexual-harassment.
Violence & Fandom
- Phillips, Brian. “Boca Juniors, River Plate, and the Allure of Violence in Sports.” The Ringer (November 28, 2018). Online. https://www.theringer.com/soccer/2018/11/28/18115215/boca-juniors-river-plate-copa-libertadores-postponement-violence
- Bonesteel, Matt. “Red Sox Acknowledge Racism at Fenway Park ‘Is Real,’ Promise Action.” Washington Post. Accessed July 30, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/11/red-sox-acknowledge-racism-fenway-park-is-real-promise-action/.
Reading Day: Wednesday Dec 2
Final Exam Day: Thursday Dec 3, 11am-1:30pm