Sport and the Spirit of Play in American Fiction PDF Download

Author: Christian K. Messenger
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231516614
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
In this comprehensive and insightful study, Christian K. Messenger contends that American writers have always created characters at play in the sure knowledge that to be active in sport in America is to be in touch with its people, their traditions, and their fantasy lives. This is the first inclusive critical study of sport in American fiction with chapters on individual authors such as Hawthorne, Lardner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner, as well as studies of sport in the literature of the frontier and in boys' formula fiction. A work of literary criticism, Sport and the Spirit of Play in American Fiction also draws on the cultural history of American sport and leisure and on a century of American literature.

Author: Christian K. Messenger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780231070942
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
Available for the first time in English, this is the definitive account of the practice of sexual slavery the Japanese military perpetrated during World War II by the researcher principally responsible for exposing the Japanese government's responsibility for these atrocities. The large scale imprisonment and rape of thousands of women, who were euphemistically called "comfort women" by the Japanese military, first seized public attention in 1991 when three Korean women filed suit in a Toyko District Court stating that they had been forced into sexual servitude and demanding compensation. Since then the comfort stations and their significance have been the subject of ongoing debate and intense activism in Japan, much if it inspired by Yoshimi's investigations. How large a role did the military, and by extension the government, play in setting up and administering these camps? What type of compensation, if any, are the victimized women due? These issues figure prominently in the current Japanese focus on public memory and arguments about the teaching and writing of history and are central to efforts to transform Japanese ways of remembering the war. Yoshimi Yoshiaki provides a wealth of documentation and testimony to prove the existence of some 2,000 centers where as many as 200,000 Korean, Filipina, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Burmese, Dutch, Australian, and some Japanese women were restrained for months and forced to engage in sexual activity with Japanese military personnel. Many of the women were teenagers, some as young as fourteen. To date, the Japanese government has neither admitted responsibility for creating the comfort station system nor given compensation directly to former comfort women. This English edition updates the Japanese edition originally published in 1995 and includes introductions by both the author and the translator placing the story in context for American readers.

Author: Kenneth Millard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019267997X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
Contemporary American Fiction provides an introduction to American fiction since 1970. Offering substantial and detailed interpretations of more than thirty texts by thirty different writers, Millard combines them in an innovative critical structure designed to promote debates on cultural politics and aesthetic value. The book is the first of its kind to offer a wide-ranging survey of recent developments in the fiction of the United States. Recent novels by established writers such as John Updike and Philip Roth are analysed alongside the fiction of younger writers such as Gish Jen and Sherman Alexie. The books innovative structure encourages new ways of thinking about how American writers might be configured in relation to each other, while providing an analysis of how contemporary fiction has responded to changes in central areas of American life such as the family, the media, technology, and consumerism. Contemporary American Fiction is a substantial critical introduction to some of the most exciting fiction of the last thirty years, an eclectic and thorough advertisement for the extraordinary vitality of American fiction at the end of the twentieth century. This is an excellent introduction to the subject for undergraduate students of modern American literature.

Author: Donald L. Deardorff
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313095469
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
This guide to the available literature on sports in American culture during the last two decades of the 20th century is a companion to Jack Higg's Sports: A Reference Guide (Greenwood, 1982). The types of individual or team sports included in this volume include those that are viewed as physical contests engaged in for physical, emotional, spiritual, or psychological fulfillment. With a focus on books alone, chapters review the available literature regarding sports and each concludes with a bibliography. Academic journals likely to contain articles on the topics discussed are listed at the end of each chapter. Twelve chapters discuss sports and American history, business and law, education, ethnicity and race, gender, literature, philosophy and religion, popular culture, psychology, science and technology, sociology and world history. This reference and guide to further research will appeal to scholars of popular culture and sports. An index and two appendixes are included, one listing important dates in American sports from 1980 through 2000 and one listing sports halls of fame, museums, periodicals, and websites.

Author: Steven J. Overman
Publisher: Mercer University Press
ISBN: 0881462268
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 431

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Book Description
Steven Overman explores the concordant values of the Protestant ethic, capitalism, and sport by applying German scholar Max Weber's seminal thesis. Weber demonstrated a relationship between the Protestant ethic and a form of economic behavior he labeled the ôcalling of capitalism.ö

Author: Kenneth Womack
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313071578
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1333

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Book Description
There's a strong interest in reading for pleasure or self-improvement in America, as shown by the popularity of Harry Potter, and book clubs, including Oprah Winfrey's. Although recent government reports show a decline in recreational reading, the same reports show a strong correlation between interest in reading and academic acheivement. This set provides a snapshot of the current state of popular American literature, including various types and genres. The volume presents alphabetically arranged entries on more than 70 diverse literary categories, such as cyberpunk, fantasy literature, flash fiction, GLBTQ literature, graphic novels, manga and anime, and zines. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and provides a definition of the genre, an overview of its history, a look at trends and themes, a discussion of how the literary form engages contemporary issues, a review of the genre's reception, a discussion of authors and works, and suggestions for further reading. Sidebars provide fascinating details, and the set closes with a selected, general bibliography. Reading in America for pleasure and knowledge continues to be popular, even while other media compete for attention. While students continue to read many of the standard classics, new genres have emerged. These have captured the attention of general readers and are also playing a critical role in the language arts classroom. This book maps the state of popular literature and reading in America today, including the growth of new genres, such as cyberpunk, zines, flash fiction, GLBTQ literature, and other topics. Each entry is written by an expert contributor and provides a definition of the genre, an overview of its history, a look at trends and themes, a discussion of how the literary form engages contemporary issues, a review of the genre's critical reception, a discussion of authors and works, and suggestions for further reading. Sidebars provide fascinating details, and the set closes with a selected, general bibliography. Students will find this book a valuable guide to what they're reading today and will appreciate its illumination of popular culture and contemporary social issues.

Author: William Steele
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786488727
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The first in-depth study of Kinsella's fiction since 1987, this book offers a unique and updated analysis. Utilizing a variety of approaches and the hermeneutical lenses of race, gender, class, religion, sexuality and post colonialism, this comprehensive text covers the five novels and numerous short stories featuring baseball. Topics include a broad history of both juvenile and adult baseball fiction, an overview of how the genre has grown since the early 1950s, and the various forms of national, community and individual identity that have formed around the sport. The bibliography offers a balance of primary baseball fiction and secondary scholarship, demonstrating the numerous approaches to the game and its literature.

Author: Jack Salzman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521266888
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This is an annotated bibliography of 20th century books through 1983, and is a reworking of American Studies: An Annotated Bibliography of Works on the Civilization of the United States, published in 1982. Seeking to provide foreign nationals with a comprehensive and authoritative list of sources of information concerning America, it focuses on books that have an important cultural framework, and does not include those which are primarily theoretical or methodological. It is organized in 11 sections: anthropology and folklore; art and architecture; history; literature; music; political science; popular culture; psychology; religion; science/technology/medicine; and sociology. Each section contains a preface introducing the reader to basic bibliographic resources in that discipline and paragraph-length, non-evaluative annotations. Includes author, title, and subject indexes. ISBN 0-521-32555-2 (set) : $150.00.

Author: Allen Guttmann
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9780890964545
Category : Sports
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Sport has always been a legitimate focus for human energy, and in the last fifteen years it has emerged as a legitimate focus for scholarly energy as well. In this interdisciplinary overview of the study of sport, sociology, intellectual history, psychology, anthropology, and literature are brought to bear in seeking new understanding of the role and significance of sport in society. Some of the conclusions will be controversial or even disturbing, and the breadth of the volume clearly demonstrates that sport history is not merely a hobby. As Jack W. Berryman notes in the introduction to the volume: "Each essay, in some distinctive manner, confronts the problem of general preconceptions and misconceptions in the study of sport history. The authors ask fundamental questions: what is sport, what is its significance over time, and how can sport be studied effectively?" Donald G. Kyle opens the questions with an examination of the myth of the decline of ancient Greek sport. Stephen Hardy proposes a new model for the interpretation of both early and modern sport. Steven A. Riess questions the historicity of the myth of social mobility through sport in America. Richard D. Mandell explains the history of theoretically profound and earnest modern criticism of sport. Allen Guttmann demythologizes the relationship between erotic impulses and sport. This serious and timely study of sport aids in the reevaluation of many popular beliefs and traditional scholarly interpretations concerning sport in various ages and cultures. It offers much of value to all those interested in contemplating the nature and history of the phenomenon of sport.

Author: Linda J. Borish
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317662490
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 574

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Book Description
The Routledge History of American Sport provides the first comprehensive overview of historical research in American sport from the early Colonial period to the present day. Considering sport through innovative themes and topics such as the business of sport, material culture and sport, the political uses of sport, and gender and sport, this text offers an interdisciplinary analysis of American leisure. Rather than moving chronologically through American history or considering the historical origins of each sport, these topics are dealt with organically within thematic chapters, emphasizing the influence of sport on American society. The volume is divided into eight thematic sections that include detailed original essays on particular facets of each theme. Focusing on how sport has influenced the history of women, minorities, politics, the media, and culture, these thematic chapters survey the major areas of debate and discussion. The volume offers a comprehensive view of the history of sport in America, pushing the field to consider new themes and approaches as well. Including a roster of contributors renowned in their fields of expertise, this ground-breaking collection is essential reading for all those interested in the history of American sport.