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Blending critical theory, conjunctural cultural studies, and assemblage theory, Making Sport Great Again introduces and develops the concept of uber-sport: the sporting expression of late capitalism's conjoined corporatizing, commercializing, spectacularizing, and celebritizing forces. On different scales and in varying spaces, the uber-sport assemblage is revealed both to surreptitiously reinscribe the neoliberal preoccupation with consumption and to nurture the individualized consumer subject. Andrews further probes how uber-sport normalizes the ideological orientations and associate affective investments of the Trump assemblage's authoritarian populism. Even as it articulates the regressive politicization of sport, Making Sport Great Again serves also as a call to action: how might progressives rearticulate uber-sport in emancipatory and actualizing political formations?
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction.-Uber-Sport as Culture Industry.- Chapter 2: Assembling Uber-Sport.- Chapter 3: Uber-Sporting Neoliberalisms.- Chapter 4: Trumping the Uber-Sport Assemblage.- Chapter 5: Conclusion.-How and Why to Read Uber-Sport?
Summary
Blending critical theory, conjunctural cultural studies, and assemblage theory, Making Sport Great Again introduces and develops the concept of uber-sport: the sporting expression of late capitalism’s conjoined corporatizing, commercializing, spectacularizing, and celebritizing forces. On different scales and in varying spaces, the uber-sport assemblage is revealed both to surreptitiously reinscribe the neoliberal preoccupation with consumption and to nurture the individualized consumer subject. Andrews further probes how uber-sport normalizes the ideological orientations and associate affective investments of the Trump assemblage’s authoritarian populism. Even as it articulates the regressive politicization of sport, Making Sport Great Again serves also as a call to action: how might progressives rearticulate uber-sport in emancipatory and actualizing political formations?
Report
"This British-born US academic has assembled ... an intriguing, complex and-blissfully-well-formulated text about the 'assemblage' of sport as an instrument of perpetuating public and private power in American society. ... This is a book about checks and balances, or rather their absence, for what is it that makes uber-sport largely impervious to change ... . makes a sensible contribution to discussions about sports governance, by focusing on the risks of charismatic and, by extension, oligarchical governance." (Jacob Kornbeck, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, Vol. 15 (2), 2021)
"There is no better scholarly guide to the politicized and politicizing nature and influence of contemporary sports on society than Andrews' perceptive words and always-challenging ideas. Theoretically rich and empirically grounded, Making Sport Great Again is both an intellectual and political intervention into the hyper-commodified, commercialised spectacle that is modern uber-sport, a diagnostic analysis of neo-liberal sports cultures of the highest order that deserves to become an instant classic'." (idrottsforum.org, December 17, 2019)
