HI365 A Global History of Sport
Sport is a universal phenomenon that deserves to be studied from a global perspective. Today more people follow football (soccer) than practice any major religion or belong to any political entity. Sport has been disseminated around the world through imperial conquest and has served as an arena of international contention, but it has also been used to build independent national identities and to promote international cooperation, as with the Olympic movement. The rise of organized sport is closely tied to the growth of mass culture and consumerism which has caused sport to become one of the most significant sectors of the global economy, with an estimated value of over US$1.5 trillion, amounting to as much as 2% of global GDP. Sport contributes to, and reflects, social change including structures of religion, class, race, and gender as seen in the promotion of "muscular Christianity" through institutions such as the YMCA, the racial segregation and desegregation of professional sport, the socioeconomic demographics behind participation in and compensation of athletes in varying international sports, and the growing diversity among athletes. This course will explore issues such as these as we investigate how, over time, sport came to play such a fundamental role in contemporary global society. We will do so through a combination of lecture, discussion, written reflection on reading and viewing assignments, examination, and participation in a Reacting to the Past immersive role-playing game entitled "Changing the Game."