Contributions by Lisa Doris Alexander, Sean Bell, Benn L. Bongang, Joel S. Franks, Silvana Vilodre Goellner, Annette R. Hofmann, Dong Jinxia, Cláudia Samuel Kessler, Jack Lule, Li Luyang, Mark Panek, Roberta J. Park, Gamage Harsha Perera, Joel Nathan Rosen, Viral Shah, Maureen M. Smith, Nancy E. Spencer, Dominic Standish, Tim B. Swartz, Dan Travis, Theresa Walton-Fisette, and Zhong Yijing
Given the presumed dominance of American sport, many fans throughout the hemisphere find it difficult to envision the role of sport beyond the confines of their own continent. And yet, world sport consists of so much more than the games Americans play and so much more than the stereotype of cricket for the elite and football for the working class. As worldwide sport continues to gain in popularity, we also see parallels to many aspects visible in North American sport, particularly celebrity and all its trappings and pitfalls.
The success of athletes from other countries in basketball and ice hockey, and the proliferation of stars imported and now exported to and from North America, provides some better examples of sport’s international power. It also creates a very new kind of sport celebrity, albeit one that often shows a rather limited reach beyond that star’s own country or continent. Thus, rather than focusing on the Western Hemisphere, this collection of some of world sport’s most heralded celebrities (including stars of Motocross, surfing, distance running, and more) serves as a sort of passport to many places that make up our global sporting environment.
Joel Nathan Rosen is associate professor of sociology at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is author of
The Erosion of the American Sporting Ethos: Shifting Attitudes Toward Competition and
From New Lanark to Mound Bayou: Owenism in the Mississippi Delta,
and coauthor of
Black Baseball, Black Business: Race Enterprise and the Fate of the Segregated Dollar,
published by University Press of Mississippi. He is founding coeditor of a five-volume collection that explores the forging and maintenance of the reputations of celebrity athletes:
Fame to Infamy: Race, Sport, and the Fall from Grace;
A Locker Room of Her Own: Celebrity, Sexuality, and Female Athletes;
Reconstructing Fame: Sport, Race, and Evolving Reputations;
More than Cricket and Football: International Sport and the Challenge of Celebrity;
and
The Circus Is in Town: Sport, Celebrity, and Spectacle, all published by University Press of Mississippi.
Maureen M. Smith is a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at Sacramento State University. She is coauthor of
Fundamentals of Sociology of Sport and Physical Activity and (Re)Presenting Wilma Rudolph.
Jack Lule is the Joseph B. McFadden Professor in Journalism at Lehigh University and is associate editor of Critical Studies in Media Communication.
