Understanding Sport Culture traces and analyzes the development of the modern field of sport from its ancient and medieval precursors (the festivals of Greece and Rome, and games such as folk football), through to its inception in the mid-nineteenth century as a set of activities designed to instill character and discipline in students in exclusive British public schools, up to its transformation into a global institution and popular spectacle. The narrative also focuses on and provides a detailed account of the gradual coming together of sport and the media. It explains how this relationship...

Understanding Representation offers an accessible, engaging, and genuinely interdisciplinary introduction to the concept of representation. Drawing together the ideas, practices, and techniques associated with the subject, this book puts them in historical context and demonstrates their relevance to everyday life. Topics include linguistic and political representation, art and media, and philosophical and cognitive approaches.

Using contemporary and topical examples from the media, popular culture, and everyday life, this lively and accessible introduction shows how the issues, concepts, and theories in Judith Butler's work function as socio-cultural practices. Giving due consideration to Butler's earlier and most recent work, and showing how her ideas on subjectivity, gender, sexuality and language overlap and interrelate, this book gives a better understanding not only of Butler's work, but of its applications to modern-day social and cultural practices and contexts.