Sports and Society

Catalog description

This course examines sport cross-culturally through the lenses of anthropology and sociology, exploring its cultural meanings, social functions, and institutional roles in historical and contemporary contexts. As a key site for recreation, health and fitness, and social life, sport also provides insight into broader processes such as globalization and identity formation, the role of ritual in society, the dynamics of deviance and conformity, its ties to local and global economies, and the potentials and obstacles of sport in community building. Focusing on multiple cultural settings, students investigate the intersections of sport and identity, gender, race, class, religion, nationality, economics, health, and environment.