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Fandom at a Fever Pitch: Nick Hornby, Bill Simmons and Imagined Athletic Communities Kalman-Lamb, Nathan
Description
Graduate student conference held December 4-5, 2009 at the University of British Columbia. Panel 3: Spectators and Sporting Goods - The Social Psychology and Political Economy of Sports moderated by Guido Schenkel. Abstract: "In this paper, I interrogate some of the reasons why spectator sport becomes such a compelling form of distraction. To this end, I conceptualize communities of fans as imagined communities along the lines articulated by theorists of nationalism Benedict Anderson, Anne McClintock, and Romila Thapar. I argue that in societies marked by capitalist alienation and isolation, desire for community prompts individuals to turn to the pre-fabricated communities of professional sport. I will attempt to demonstrate how the imagined athletic community functions analogous to other forms of imagined communities through readings of two recent memoirs of fandom: Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch and Bill Simmons’ Now I Can Die in Peace. Both of these texts reveal some of the mechanisms of imagined athletic communities. They also disclose the insidious implications of this form of community: there is always another team that one is better than and opposed to, for by becoming a part of a particular imagined athletic community, one becomes the antagonist of all similar but opposing communities." This presentation can be found at 00:44:36 - 01:05:00 in the recording.
Item Metadata
Title |
Fandom at a Fever Pitch: Nick Hornby, Bill Simmons and Imagined Athletic Communities
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Creator | |
Date Issued |
2009-12-05
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Description |
Graduate student conference held December 4-5, 2009 at the University of British Columbia. Panel 3: Spectators and Sporting Goods - The Social Psychology and Political Economy of Sports moderated by Guido Schenkel. Abstract: "In this paper, I interrogate some of the reasons why spectator sport becomes such a compelling form of distraction. To this end, I conceptualize communities of fans as imagined communities along the lines articulated by theorists of nationalism Benedict Anderson, Anne McClintock, and Romila Thapar. I argue that in societies marked by capitalist alienation and isolation, desire for community prompts individuals to turn to the pre-fabricated communities of professional sport. I will attempt to demonstrate how the imagined athletic community functions analogous to other forms of imagined communities through readings of two recent memoirs of fandom: Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch and Bill Simmons’ Now I Can Die in Peace. Both of these texts reveal some of the mechanisms of imagined athletic communities. They also disclose the insidious implications of this form of community: there is always another team that one is better than and opposed to, for by becoming a part of a particular imagined athletic community, one becomes the antagonist of all similar but opposing communities." This presentation can be found at 00:44:36 - 01:05:00 in the recording.
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Type | |
Language |
eng
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Series | |
Date Available |
2010-05-25
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0107859
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URI | |
Affiliation | |
Peer Review Status |
Unreviewed
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Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Rights URI | |
Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International