The Uses of Sport

Sports is an important part of cultural life, yet until recently it has tended to remain on the margins of academic cultural studies. This textbook puts sports in the spotlight of cultural inquiry for the first time. The authors provide the essential resources for the study of sport within culture and popular culture. Beginning by considering sport in relation to the pre-Cultural Studies tradition of cultural commentary,The Uses of Sportthen moves on to a critical engagement with a number of themes relevant to contemporary cultural studies including community and social capital, cultural populism, cultural materialism, visual culture and film, and postmodernism and citizenship. As sport continues to gain cultural and academic significance, this textbook will become the definative resource for students and scholars of cultural studies, sociology, and sport and leisure studies.

Marcus Free is a lecturer in Media and Communication Studies at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick. David Inglis is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Aberdeen. John Hughson is Senior Lecturer in the School of Physical Education, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.