Sportsex [Paperback]

Toby Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 21, 2002

"Sportsex" examines the landscape of sports writ globally. And it is about the way sport allows men and women but mostly men to consider their looks, their vitality, and their relationship to their gender in ways that would be considered taboo in any other context. Miller pays particular attention to the way celebrity is considered around the world through a number of different athletic activities. Along the way he also offers his own personal connection to sport as both a researcher and recipient of its abuses and pleasures. In a world where everything is considered in its relationship to globalization, sport is one of the few arenas of social life that can be concretely seen in international terms. "Sportsex" opens that world up in a way that is accessible and significant for anyone interested in the shape of our emerging world culture. Author note: Toby Miller is Professor of Cultural Studies and Cultural Policy at New York University, and is the author of numerous books on media, culture, and sport, including "The Avengers and Technologies of Truth: Cultural Citizenship and the Popular Media".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Lively, informed, thoughtful, provocative, and susbstantive...[Sportsex] deals perceptively and quickly with the broadest range of concerns about sexuality and representation in and around the world of high-profile sports." --Michael Real, Department of Communication, San Diego State University, and author of Global Ritual: Olympic Media Coverage and International Understanding "Sportsex is the work of impassioned fandom and a voracious cultural appetite." --Michael Berube, Politics and Culture "A groundbreaking study of the globalization of the body through sports, particularly sports driven by the media and advertisers... Those concerned with sports will debate Miller's stimulating ideas for some time to come." --Choice "Miller goes inside the locker room and situates the sports star--whether a lesbian tennis player, an out Austrialian rugby player, or a sexually ambiguous professional basketball player--into the larger contexts of bodily representation, political economy, and identity. As Americans contemplate the public ramifications of other professional athletes coming out of the closet, Miller's in-depth inquiry offers some illuminating perspectives." --Kevin Arnovitz, Out "The best book on sexuality and sport to date... There are no other[s] that compete indirectly or directly with this one... [This] book will be seen as a significant contribution and will help shape the field of studies on sport and sexuality." --Cheryl Cole, Women's Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "Finally, a book that gets beyond a simple condemnation of media culture and the way it functions in sport to a more complicated analysis of both positive and negative potentialities. Sportsex explores the sexualization and commodification of both male and female athlete bodies and the consequences for a real destabilization of gender polarities. A fascinating and highly readable contribution to sport and media studies." --Leslie Heywood, author of Bodymakers: A Cultural Anatomy of Women's Bodybuilding and Built to Win: The Rise of the Female Athlete as Cultural Icon "A hugely enjoyable, smart and sexy examination of the role sports and athletes play in the contemporary lesbian and gay sexual imagination." --Tim Miller, author of Shirts & Skins

From the Publisher

How people perform their sexual identities as athletes and spectators --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press; 1 edition (August 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566399947
• ISBN-13: 978-1566399944
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #929,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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