Sport and Militarism

The institutional relationship between sport and the military appears to be intensifying. In the US for example, which faced global criticism for its foreign policy during the "war on terror," militaristic images are commonplace at sporting events. The growing global phenomenon of conflating sport with war calls for closer analysis. This critical, interdisciplinary and international book seeks to identify intersections of sport and militarism as a means to interrogate, interrupt and intervene on behalf of democratic, peaceful politics.
Viewing sport as a crucial site in which militarism is made visible and legitimate, the book explores the connections between sport, the military and the state, and their consequent impact on wider culture. Featuring case studies on sports such as association football, baseball and athletics from countries including the US, UK, Germany, Canada, South Africa, Brazil and Japan, each chapter sheds new light on the shifting significance of sport in our society.
This book is fascinating reading for all those interested in sport and politics, the sociology of sport, communication studies, the ethics and philosophy of sport, or military sociology.

Michael L. Butterworth is Director and Associate Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University, USA. His research investigates the relationships between rhetoric, democracy and sport. In particular, he is interested in the extent to which commercialized sport may enrich or diminish democratic culture. He is the author of Baseball and Rhetorics of Purity: The National Pastime and American Identity during the War on Terror (2010) and co-author of the textbook Communication and Sport: Surveying the Field (2014). He has published in journals such as Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication and Sport, Communication, Culture & Critique, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, the Journal of Communication, and the Quarterly Journal of Speech

1. Sport and Militarism: An Introduction to a Global Phenomenon [Michael L. Butterworth] Section I: Sport, Militarism, and the State 2. Call of Duty: Sport and the Urban Citizen Soldier [Kimberly S. Schimmel] 3. Weaponizing Kinesiology: Illuminating the Militarization of Sport Sciences [David L. Andrews, Ross H. Miller, and Stephanie Cork] 4. Baseball Czars, War, and the U.S. Military [Robert Elias] 5. "Aktiv, Attraktiv, Anders"? The Bundeswehr's Deployment of German Athletes as Sport Soldiers [Mia Fischer] 6. Sport and the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa, 1899-1902 [Dean Allen] 7. The Absence and Presence of State Militarism: Violence, Football, Narcos, and Colombia [Alfredo Sabbagh Fajardo and Toby Miller] Section II: Ritual Productions of Militarism in Sport 8. "God Bless America": An Anthem for American Exceptionalism and Empire [Ron Briley] 9. War Games: The Politics of War, Sport Spectacles, and Grieving in Canada [Lisa McDermott and Jay Scherer] 10. The Paradox of Militaristic Remembrance in British Sport and Popular Culture [John Kelly] 11. "Blood Warriors" and "Polite Siegfrieds": Militarism and Neo-Nationalism in German Media Discourse after the 2014 World Cup [Karsten Senkbeil] 12. The Military in Brazilian Sport: A Long and Controversial Presence [Victor Andrade de Melo and Mauricio Drummond] 13. Uniforms and Unanimity: Reading the Rhetorical Entanglement of Militarism and Sport through Mimetic Realism [Roberto Sirvent and Duncan Reyburn] Section III: Disciplining Gender through Sport and Militarism 14. The Phallus and the Pariah: The Cultural Politics of the Post-9/11 Sporting Body [Michael Silk] 15. Trumpism, Tom Brady, and the Reassertion of White Supremacy in Militarized Post-9/11 America [Kyle Kusz] 16. Teaching Violence: Corporal Punishment, Vertical Hierarchy, and the Reproduction of Militaristic Values in Contemporary Japanese Sports [Aaron Miller] 17. Verifying Victory: The Militarized Politics of Sex Verification in International Sports [Shannon Holland] 18. "The Woman Who Saved Football in Georgia": A Rhetoric of Masculine Virtue and Spartan Motherhood [J. David Maxson]