Diego Maradona (Critical Research in Football)

This is the first book in English to closely examine the life of Diego Maradona from socio-cultural perspectives, exploring how his status as an icon, a popular sporting hero, and a political figurehead has been culturally constructed, reproduced, and manipulated.

The volume looks at representations of Maradona across a wide variety of media, including literature, cinema, popular music, printed and online press, and radio, and in different countries around the world, to cast new light on topics such as the instrumentality of sporting heroes and the links among sport, nationalism, and ideology. It shows how the life of Maradona – from his origins in the barrio through to his rise to god-like status in Naples and as a postcolonial symbol of courage and resistance against imperial powers across the global south, alongside scandal and his fall from grace – powerfully illustrates themes such as the dynamics of gender, justice, and affect that underpin the study of sport, culture, and society.

This is essential reading for anybody with an interest in football, sport studies, media studies, cultural studies, or sociology.

Pablo Brescia is a writer, critic, and Professor of Spanish at the University of South Florida, USA, where he directs the graduate program and teaches courses on contemporary Latin American literature and culture. His areas of research are the theory and history of short fiction and the intersection among science, technology, and literature in Latin America.

Mariano Paz is a Lecturer in Spanish and Subject Leader for Spanish at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland, where he is also an Associate Director of the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies. His research focuses on Latin American utopian and dystopian cinemas, science fiction, and popular culture.