The Story of Sports: Athletics in Literature and Culture

Catalog description

Sports tell stories. From the ancient Greek gymnasium and bullfighting in Spain to WNBA basketball and Olympic figure skating, athletics is a powerful and pervasive form of cultural expression. Sports tell stories about race, gender, power, nation, capitalism and, most palpably, the human body. This course studies the literature of athletics, investigating the specific resources that sports fiction, poems, essays, and films bring to the understanding of larger social and cultural dynamics.