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We often hear that sport and politics don’t mix. As much as fans want to keep political
issues out of their games, the fact is that the modern sport and politics have always been connected. In looking at the histories of team and individual sports, governing bodies, and the Olympic movement, we see episodes of class and ethnic division, imperialism, institutional racism, economic globalization, and the influence of political ideology. From the dictators of the 1930s using sport to build prestige to current disputes over hosting international events, we miss important dimensions of sport by trying to push politics out of the picture. Likewise, we gain a new perspective of world politics by turning our attention to sport. Poslední úprava: Hornát Jan, PhDr., Ph.D. (29.01.2025)
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This course will explore the political dimensions of world sport, along with associated economic, The course will focus on sports in Europe and North America, from the turn of the 20th century to the present. Yet we will also give attention to East Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. Throughout the course, there will be discussion of politics and sport in the First Czechoslovak Republic, socialist Czechoslovakia, and the Czech Republic. Students will be encouraged to think analytically about how politics manifests itself in sport. The aim is that your perspective of sport will be sharper, helping you to see what happens beyond the game. Poslední úprava: Hornát Jan, PhDr., Ph.D. (29.01.2025)
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Course Requirements: Participation (20% of final grade). Students are expected to attend class sessions, read the assigned texts, and actively engage in discussions. Exam (30%). Students will complete the final exam during the exam term. This will be a written, comprehensive exam based on material presented in class sessions as well as the assigned readings. Podcast Project (25%): Podcasts are an increasingly common way for people to learn about the past. For this project, you will propose a new limited-run podcast on a subject linking sport and politics. First, you will choose a subject for your podcast. It might be an episode connecting sport and politics in a particular country or internationally. You will then plan a podcast of 5–8 episodes in which you explore this historical topic in an informative and engaging way. Each episode will focus on a specific theme or aspect of your larger subject. You must plan each episode: What topics are you going to address? What questions are you going to pose? What stories are you going to tell? Are you going to interview anyone for the episode? Are you going to include original audio sources in the episode? Above all, the episodes must connect into a well-researched, cohesive presentation of your selected topic. For the project, each student will submit: A. Proposal for the podcast (300–500 words), explaining the subject and its significance, and making the case why this podcast will be informative and engaging to listeners. B. Outline for podcast episodes (1-2 paragraphs for each episode), providing an overview of the structure and content of each episode and how the episodes will connect in creating the complete podcast. C. List of sources, including sources you researched for the project and sources you will use in the podcast episodes. D. The first episode of the podcast. In an audio recording of no more than three minutes, you will introduce the podcast subject in a way that previews the topics explored in the episode, offers examples of the most interesting material, and engages listeners to want to listen to the whole series. This project is due on 8 April. Research Project (25%): Throughout the semester, you will be reading chapters from Barbara Keys’ book Globalizing Sport, on international sports organizations and events in the decades before World War II, and Laurent Dubois’ book Soccer Empire, which looks at the history of French national identity and contemporary racial politics through the lens of football. Based on the approaches that Keys and Dubois take, you will choose one of four prompts for your final research paper. Whichever prompt you choose, address the research topic in a paper of 1200–1700 words. This project will be due on 6 May. Prompt 1: As Keys explains, sports organizations like FIFA and the IOC became important parts of the international system in the first half of the 20th century. Keys ends her book at World War II. For your paper, you will carry her line of research to the present day. Choose one of the major sports governing bodies and research its activities in the post-Cold War decades. Does that organization continue to shape the international system, in the ways that Keys describes? How has its role changed since the 1920s and 30s? Prompt 2: Keys’ book describes how the authoritarian regimes of the 1930s used international sporting events to push their political programs. Following this argument, choose a present-day episode of an authoritarian country that used a major sporting event for political purposes. How has the use of sports for political aims changed from the 1930s to today? How is it like the episodes that Keys describes? Prompt 3: As Dubois explains, France’s victory in the 1998 World Cup was an important event for the nation’s political history. Is there a sporting event that had a similarly broad impact in another country in the post-World War II period? How did that event have political significance beyond sport? Prompt 4: A key theme of Dubois’ book is the struggle to define French national identity during a period of increased migration from former colonies into France. Choose another country of Europe where questions of national identity have intersected with sport. In your research paper explain how sport has been a site of conflict or integration as immigrants have settled in this particular country Poslední úprava: Hornát Jan, PhDr., Ph.D. (29.01.2025)
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Course Literature: Students will read chapters from the following books, available in PDF format:
Additional book chapters and scholarly articles are also assigned. These are also available as PDFs. Poslední úprava: Hornát Jan, PhDr., Ph.D. (29.01.2025)
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Seminar and lecture Poslední úprava: Hornát Jan, PhDr., Ph.D. (29.01.2025)
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Tentative Schedule: Class sessions will include lectures and discussions of the readings and recent events 18 February: Course Intro: Sports & Politics in the Classical Age No reading. 25 February: Early 20th Century: Sport for God and Nation Read: Barbara Keys, Globalizing Sport, introduction & chap. 1; and Laurent Dubois, Soccer Empire, preface & introduction 4 March: Early 20th Century: Sport and Empire Read: Dubois, Soccer Empire, chap. 1 & 2 11 March: Early 20th Century: Rebuilding after War Read: Keys, Globalizing Sport, chap 2 18 March: Ideology and International Sport: Fascist Supermen––and Women Read: Keys, Globalizing Sport, chaps 5 & 6 25 March: Ideology and International Sport: USA v USSR Mikhail Prozumenshikov, “Action in the Era of Stagnation: Leonid Brezhnev and the Soviet Olympic Dream,” in The Whole World Was Watching: Sport in the Cold War, edited by Robert Edelman and Christopher Young (Stanford University Press, 2019): 73–84. 1 April: Ideology and International Sport:Fraternal Socialist Rivals Oldřich Tůma, “‘They had no tanks this time and they got four goals’: The hockey events in Czechoslovakia in 1969 and the fall of Alexander Dubček,” in The (Inter-Communist) Cold War on Ice: Soviet-Czechoslovak Ice Hockey Politics, 1967-1969, CWIHP Working Paper #69 (2014): 12–34. 8 April: Sport and the Politics of Equality: Gender Podcast Assignment Due 15 April: Sport and the Politics of Equality: Racism & Protest in the 1960s & 70s Elliot J. Gorn, “‘I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong’: Muhammad Ali’s Cold War,” in The Whole World Was Watching, 42–56. 22 April: Sport and the Politics of Equality: Racism & Protest in the 90s & 2000s Read: Dubois, Soccer Empire, chaps. 7, 10 & 11 29 April: Sportswashing the New Dictatorships: Putin’s Russia Nina Kramareva and Jonathan Grix, “‘War and Peace’ at the 1980 Moscow and 2014 Sochi Olympics: The Role of Hard and Soft Power in Russian Identity,” International Journal of the History of Sport 35 (2018): 1407–1427. 6 May: Sportswashing the New Dictatorships: From Beijing to the Persian Gulf Research Project Due Final Exam: May 2024 Poslední úprava: Hornát Jan, PhDr., Ph.D. (29.01.2025)
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