Robert E. Washington

This comprehensive collection examines the culture of sport and its relationship with various social institutions. The editors first provide a broad overview of the field and describe the ways in which the concept of sport as a meritocratic contest is undermined by the powerful social structures within which it is embedded. Sections focus on political economy, violence, the media, education, politics, fans and community, and the body. Primary readings from noted scholars in each section address current issues such as the presence of big-time sports in educational institutions; the effects of corporate media; race and class relations; professional athletes' ties to politics; and how sports alter perceptions and practices regarding beauty and health. In addition, entertaining and provocative essays from journalists supplement academic readings and spotlight key issues. Section introductions from the editors connect the readings to a theoretical framework that explores the perspectives of new institutionalism, cultural hegemony, social capital, and symbolic interaction and cultural construction. Providing a cohesive foundation for a wide range of readings, Sport, Power, and Society is a must-have resource for understanding the current issues and debates surrounding the interactions of sport and society.

This comprehensive collection examines the culture of sport and its relationship with various social institutions. The editors first provide a broad overview of the field and describe the ways in which the concept of sport as a meritocratic contest is undermined by the powerful social structures within which it is embedded. Sections focus on political economy, violence, the media, education, politics, fans and community, and the body. Primary readings from noted scholars in each section address current issues such as the presence of big-time sports in educational institutions; the effects of corporate media; race and class relations; professional athletes' ties to politics; and how sports alter perceptions and practices regarding beauty and health. In addition, entertaining and provocative essays from journalists supplement academic readings and spotlight key issues. Section introductions from the editors connect the readings to a theoretical framework that explores the perspectives of new institutionalism, cultural hegemony, social capital, and symbolic interaction and cultural construction. Providing a cohesive foundation for a wide range of readings, Sport, Power, and Society is a must-have resource for understanding the current issues and debates surrounding the interactions of sport and society.

This book embarks on new intellectual terrain as the first systematic and theoretically grounded sociological study of African American literature. It examines the impact of race relations, as well as other social and political forces, on the development of the dominant ideological outlooks of African American literature. Spanning the fifty year period from 1920 to 1970, encompassing the mass northern movement, urbanization, and modernization of the African American community, and culminating in the civil rights revolution, it is the first sociological study that situates black literary discourse, and the major black American literary intellectuals (e.g. Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka), in the social and political developments of American race relations. By analyzing the formation, influence, and decline of each of the five dominant schools of black literary discourse over those five tumultuous decades, it explains how black literary production not only reacted to — but also was shaped and constrained by — the racial caste system. The book concludes with a theoretical chapter that links the dominant black literary outlooks to white American culture. Rejecting the simplistic notion that all cultural expression by black Americans reflects the community's social consciousness, this theoretical discussion sets forth a comparative analytical framework for understanding the social locations and functions of the different spheres of African American cultural production.