HU5056

About two-thirds of Americans describe themselves as sports fans, and hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on American sports annually, including on ticket sales, merchandise, gambling, and more. But what does this obsession with sports say about us as a nation? How do sports help to shape our national and individual identities? How are issues of class, race, and gender in the US heightened in or mitigated by the sports arena? Why has so much literature focused on sports? And what can those texts show us about ourselves, about the sports themselves, and about our culture in general? In order to explore these questions and others, students will read fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and will view two films that deal with sports.

Books/Materials >$50, Humanities Group I