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.

Week Four (Sep 8 / 10)
Protests & Activism in Sports

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

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

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 …
  • 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

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

Canada

Soccer (Argentina)

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)

Football

Basketball

Baseball

Business of Sports

North Carolina

Tennis

Sex & Abuses of Power in Sports

Violence & Fandom

Reading Day: Wednesday Dec 2

Final Exam Day: Thursday Dec 3, 11am-1:30pm