NYU Press Sports Matters: Race, Recreation, and Culture

Sports Matters brings critical attention to the centrality of race within the politics and pleasures of the massive sports culture that developed in the U.S. during the past century and a half. Review ""East Main Street" creates its own relevance by touching on an abundance of cultural mediums and themes. Scholars of film, literature, the Internet, music, and history can all find essays in which to sink their teeth."-"Western American Literature", "A veritable feast of the field's most scrumptious offerings, "East Main Street" satisfies with some of the best minds in Asian American studies at this table."-Gary Y. Okihiro, author of "Common Ground: Reimagining American History" "Sure to spark the imagination of both seasoned fans of Asian American popular culture and the as yet uninitiated. From cyberspace and anim to "The Simpsons" and "Secret Asian Man", this book intrigues and provokes with every chapter. The sheer number of savvy cultural critics assembled ensures that readers will find something of interest, no matter where one begins exploring the popular culture of Asian America."-Kent Ono, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign "This volume explores historical and contemporary Asian American popular culture in the context of three broad themes: globalization and local identities, cultural legacy and memories, and ethnicity and identification. Among topics covered are transnational Vietnamese music, Asian fusion cuisine, race on the Internet, kung fu movies, hip hop, and the 'iconography of Tiger Woods.'"-"Sage Race Relations Abstracts", Synopsis This volume brings critical attention to the centrality of race within the politics and pleasures of the massive sports culture that has developed in the US.blacks in sport. They consider baseball - from Nisei players in Oregon to Mexican-Americans in Los Angeles, and they look at the use of warrior imagery in representations of Native American athletes and the evolution of black expressive style within basketball. This book aims to challenge presumptions about sports, illuminating in the process the complexities of race and gender as they relate to popular culture. About the Author John Bloom teaches American Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He is the author of A House of Cards: Baseball Card Collecting and Popular Culture, and To Show What an Indian Can Do: Sports at Indian Boarding Schools. Michael Willard is co-editor of Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth Century America, also available from NYU Press.