This textbook puts sport in the spotlight of cultural inquiry for the first time. The authors provide the essential resources for the study of sport within culture and popular culture. Sport is an important part of cultural life, yet until recently it has tended to remain on the margins of academic cultural studies. Beginning by considering sport in relation to the pre-cultural studies tradition of cultural commentary, The Uses of Sport then moves on to a critical engagement with a number of themes relevant to contemporary cultural studies including: community and social capital, cultural populism, cultural materialism, visual culture and film, and postmodernism and citizenship. As sport continues to gain cultural and academic significance, this textbook will become the definitive resource for students and scholars of cultural studies, sociology, and sport and leisure studies.
