Interrelationships Between Sport and the Arts

This multidisciplinary collection examines different dimensions of the interrelationships between sport and the arts. It is a consequence of the Fields of Vision initiative that challenges their typical separation into distinct realms. Whether at school or in the highest realms of public life people struggle to reconcile the two; they lack the necessary conceptual vocabulary. Worse, there are entrenched positions characterised by mutual suspicion, distrust and denigration. In contrast, the contributors to this book challenge the creativity/competition binary and highlight the potential for collaboration in theoretical discourse, policy, education and professional practice. In doing so, the authors draw strength from the Olympian ethos of the Greeks and the vison of the founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin. The book seeks to ‘problematise, interrogate and provoke’. The papers shed new light on sport and the arts as representations of cultural identity and embodying processes of social change.

This book is a significant new contribution to understanding both sports and the arts, not just in their separate contexts, but also in amalgam. It represents a valuable resource for researchers and advanced students of Sports, Visual Art, Literature, History, Sociology, Social Theory and Cultural Studies. It was originally published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

Jonathan Long is an emeritus professor with the Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure at Leeds Beckett University, UK. For over 40 years he has been researching the role that the many aspects of leisure have within society. His work has an emphasis on social justice and social change.

Doug Sandle is a visiting research fellow, Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure, Leeds Beckett University, UK. He was the instigator of the Fields of Vision initiative that led to a programme of events that over a decade explored the relationship between the arts and sport.