How Postmodernism Explains Football and Football Explains Postmodernism: The Billy Clyde Conundrum

American football and postmodernist theory are both objects of popular and scholarly interest that reveal remarkable sociological insights. Analysis of media-driven commercial football documents how narratives of sportsmanship/brutality, heroism/antiheroism, athleticism/self-indulgence, honor/chicanery, and chivalry/sexism compete and thrive.

This text presents a fascinating examination of its subject and offers an important contribution to our understanding of the role football plays in our culture and society. I recommend it to all academic readers interested in postmodernism or sports culture. (Danielle Sarver Coombs, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 96 (2), 2019)

Autorentext

Robert Kerr is Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professor at Gaylord College, University of Oklahoma, USA.

Inhalt

1. Introduction - Why This Game, Why This Story
2. America Meets Football, and Football Meets Frank Merriwell
3. Time Runs Out on the Wholesome Warrior
4. Center Stage for Billy Clyde
5. Scenes from the Conundrum in Motion
6. A Postmodernist Theory of Football
7. Life in the Hyper-Mediated Marketplace of Football Narratives
8. A Merriwellean Billy Clyde from a Postmodern Beer a Minute
9. Two-Tiered Gender System Encounters Emotion Work
10. Conclusion - Football, Postmodernism, and Us