Prof's Choice
Natural Religion and the Joy of Sport
Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: The Play Element of Culture (Beacom Press, 1961). A controversial analysis of play as an intrinsic component of culture, Huizinga, a Dutch historian/philosopher, worried that modern sport is more work than play.
Roger Caillois, Man. Play and Games (Shocken Books, 1979). French Sociologist Caillois recomceptualizes Huizinga's notion of play as he outlines the relation among play , games, and sport in society,
Michael Novak, The Joy of Sports (Basic Books 1976). Theologian Novak believes that sports are a form of "natural" religion because they emerge out of the same quest for perfection in body mind and spirit that leads people to form their conceptions of God conceptions that always embody the ideals of a particular group' or society.
Jackie Robinson, I Never Had It Made (G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1972). A revealing autobiography of the man who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Allen Guttman, From Ritaul to Record (Columbia University Press, 1978). Am important work which contributed greatly to the academic study of modern sport.
Michael A. Messner and Donal F. Sabo, editors, Sport Men and the Gender Order (Human Kinetics Books, 1990). The concept of gender has been conspicuously absent from analyse of sport. This book represents an emergent trend inspired by feminism and new perspectives on men and masculinity .
Mariah Burton Nelson, The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football (Harcourt Brace, 1994). When male hegemony in sports is threatened. Nelson argues, men retreat to the psychological safety of traditionally male sports.
