New Books in Sports

Today we are joined by Grant Farred, Professor of Africana Studies and English at Cornell University.  Farred is the author of The Burden of Over-Representation: Race, Sport, and Philosophy(Temple University Press, 2018), which explores three sporting ‘events’: an uncharacteristic outburst from Jackie Robinson’s at a spring training game in New Orleans, Francois Pienaar and Nelson Mandela’s celebration after the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and the ethereal presence of Derrida in the stands of the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa.  He concentrates on these three happenings in order to raise questions about (over)representation in sports, the event, reconciliation and conciliation, the curse of service, the interplay between love and suffering, and coloniality and post-coloniality.In The Burden of Over-Representation, Farred re-interprets these moments using the work of philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Friedrich Nietzsche, and most consistently Jacques Derrida.  He also interweaves his analysis with larger discussions of literary theory, Hamlet, Judith Butler, Marx, and the Bible.  His novel approach offers new avenues to approach physical culture – sport enables him to actualize Derridian critiques in new ways. “To think sport philosophically.”Instead of a passive and suffering Robinson, Farred sees a man cursed by his call to service, in part complicit in his own objectification, and in one moment exposed through a split second of Fanoninan profanity.  Pienaar’s negation of Mandela’s congratulations (“No, thank you, Mr. President”), returned the divisive history of apartheid into a moment of national unity.  Pienaar’s power in the face of the powerless President, his self-immolation in his moment of greatest triumph, displayed the limits of Mandela’s policy of reconciliation in a nation still riven by economic, political, and social inequity.  Farred “sees” Derrida, or perhaps only his ghostly echo, at the World Cup in South Africa.  Thinking through the spectral allows Farred to not only reframe the pied-noir philosopher as African thinker, but also show the spectrality of the state, and explain the presence of seventeen Frenchmen of Algerian descent on the Algerian team.The Burden of Over-Representation – as rich in philosophical insights as it is in humor – will be of interest to scholars fascinated by the connection between sports and philosophy, critical theory, race, and colonialism/post-colonialism.Keith Rathbone is a lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.  He researches twentieth century French social and cultural history. His manuscript, entitled A Nation in Play: Physical Culture, the State, and Society during France's Dark Years, 1932-1948, examines physical education and sports in order to better understand civic life under the dual authoritarian systems of the German Occupation and the Vichy Regime.  If you have a title to suggest for this podcast, please contact him at keith.rathbone@mq.edu.au Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Today we are joined by Howard W. Rosenberg, author of Ty Cobb Unleashed: The Definitive Counter-Biography of the Chastened Racist (Tile Books, 2018). In this deeply researched volume, Rosenberg achieves what many biographers have failed to do: to put Cobb into the context of his times. That means seeing Cobb... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Questions about freedom of the press, defamation, libel and slander have been in the news quite a bit lately. Bad Lies (Mascot Books, 2017) tells the story of Eddie Bennison, who is over 50 when he makes it into the professional golf circuit. In two years, he wins millions of dollars in... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Today we are joined by Jenifer Parks, Associate Professor of History at Rocky Mountain College. Parks is the author of The Olympic Games, the Soviet Sport Bureaucracy, and the Cold War: Red Sport, Red Tape (Lexington Books, 2016), which asks how Soviet bureaucrats maneuvered the USSR into the Olympic movement and... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Today we are joined by Jack Gilden, author of the book Collision of Wills: Johnny Unitas, Don Shula, and the Rise of the Modern NFL (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). In this groundbreaking book, Gilden takes the reader back to the Baltimore Colts of the mid-1960s, led by the best... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Today we are joined by Antonio Sotomayor, Assistant Professor and Librarian of Latin American and Caribbean studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Sotomayor is the author of The Sovereign Colony: Olympic Sport, National Identity, and International Politics in Puerto Rico (University of Nebraska Press, 2016), which asks the question... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Today we are joined by David George Surdam, co-author with Michael J. Haupert of the book The Age of Ruth and Landis: The Economics of Baseball during the Roaring Twenties (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). In this work, which blends a liberal mix of sports and economics, Surdam and Haupert... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Today we are joined by Skip Desjardin, author of the book September 1918: War, Plague, and the World Series (Regnery History, 2018). In this work, which blends sports and history together, Desjardin looks at the historic and turbulent events of September 1918 that affected Boston. The Red Sox won their... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Today we are joined by Gerald Gems, Professor of Kinesiology at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, and the author of several books on sports history including Sport in American History: From Colonization to Globalization (2017), Sport and the American Occupation of the Philippines (2016), and Blood and Guts to... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports

Today we are joined by Gregory Snyder, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY), and author of Skateboarding LA: Inside Professional Street Skateboarding (New York University Press, 2017).  In Skateboarding LA, Snyder explores the world of professional street skateboarding in order to explain... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sports