The Allure of Sports in Western Culture

"The Allure of Sports in Western Culture brings together a collection of insightful investigations into the qualities, both ethical and aesthetic, that have constituted the fascination of sports from classical antiquity to the present day. Observed from a broad variety of perspectives, the essays in this volume address the entangled forms of desire – for beauty, for ugliness, for losing one’s individuality – that combine to make sports one of the most significant cultural activities of the West."

Andrew James Johnston, Freie Universität Berlin

"Zilcosky and Burks have put together a timely collection of exceptional quality. The Allure of Sports in Western Culture evidences the growing importance of sports studies as a field that urges us to think through some of the most pressing questions of ethics and aesthetics. It shows how sports play a key role in historical subject formations and illuminates how the cultural as well as political events that institutionalize this practice are central to our modern self-understanding. The contributions make clear that scholars across the humanities have much to profit from thinking about the allure of sports."

Alexander Regier, Department of English, Rice University

"The fascination of sport in all its richness and ambivalence has hardly ever been explored so deeply. Magnificent!"

Stefan Willer, Department of German Literature, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin