Scarecrow Press
Pages: 164
Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-0-8108-8700-8 • Hardback • December 2012 • $113.00 • (£87.00)
978-0-8108-8701-5 • eBook • December 2012 • $107.00 • (£82.00)
Michael Gavin is senior academic administrator at Prince George's Community College.
This book critiques how mainstream sports columnists responded to various tragedies during the last half century, with an emphasis on the recent past. Gavin (Prince George's Community College) examines how these writers applied the "rhetoric of tragedy" to political assassinations (e.g., John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy), acts of terrorism (e.g., the Oklahoma City and Centennial Olympic Park bombings and the 9/11 attacks), and natural disasters (e.g., Hurricane Katrina and the 2011 tsunami), among other events. Many sports columnists, Gavin writes, used these events to champion traditional values and thus buttressed the political status quo and remythologized the nation as virtuous. Others, however, used these moments to challenge white male privilege and conventional notions of national identity. Following the work of Marita Sturken and Lauren Berlant, Gavin argues that media coverage of sport after a tragedy provides opportunities to consider and contest cultural memories and meaning. He is correct.. All readership levels.
— Choice Reviews
This volume is an interesting look at two seemingly unrelated topics—sports and American historical tragedies—and the ways in which they coincide and how the world of sports responds to national tragedies. The author has observed that after a national tragedy many sports columnists write articles or commentaries on the role that sports plays in national recovery. The author provides chapters on how American athletes, sports teams, and sports fans have reacted to such historic tragedies as John F. Kennedy's assassination, Hurricane Katrina, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the bombing of the 1996 Olympics, and the 2011 Japanese tsunami in which the American and Japanese women's soccer teams competed soon after in the final round of the World Cup. The American public has strong ties to its sports teams and this book provides a unique perspective on how the American public copes with adversity and loss through sports in the aftermath of tragedy.
— American Reference Books Annual