Anthropology of Sport and the Body

What is sport? Fun? Big money? A tool for freedom... or control?This course will use the work of anthropology and critical studies to probe what exactly sport is, and how it shapes the body. We will begin by looking at various ways in which social theorists have proposed studying sport, and then use these theoretical frameworks to examine contemporary sport, from individual practice to global spectacle. We will probe the social nature of sport- how it molds bodies, makes players, enraptures audiences. We will ask questions like: Is sport good? What do the Olympics Games aim to achieve? Should NCAA players be paid? In doing so we will examine the underlying social and political assumptions that undergird what we have come to think of as sport today.As we think through how contemporary theorists of our time have theorized sport, we too will use their tools to form our own analyses of sport as a social and political powerhouse.We will look also at how sport has historically been used as a technique of both control and resistance across the world. We will read several anthropologists' work on sport across a variety of cultures, particularly as it relates to nineteenth century European colonialism.We will conclude the course with a sustained discussion of the Olympic Games, using the tools we have studied to think through this massive spectacle of global import.This course is ideally suited for anyone interested in how sport can be examined as a form of culture and social exchange and, more broadly, how theory can be used to break open contemporary culture.