Gods, Games, and Globilization: New Perspectives on Religion and Sport

The focus of this volume is on the varieties of religious experiences in sports on the global stage. The first generation of sports and religion scholars debated the ways sports intersected with or even replaced traditional religions and investigated self-identified religious adherents and institutions that have used sports in traditional religious contexts. Our task here is to expand, revise, and complicate this conversation. The essays in this volume look both within and beyond conventional frames to shine a light on the many facets of this endlessly compelling topic. The authors featured here press against the U.S. settings that have occupied a central location in the story of religion and sports. These essays extend out to the different corners of the world, to developed and developing nations, from urban to rural landscapes. They examine sports with devoted followings that are underrepresented in conversations on religion and sports: mixed martial arts, fly fishing, pole dancing, youth hockey, and track and field. And they reveal sports’ connectedness to broader global forces, such as capitalism, education, philanthropy, and international conflict, providing new theoretical perspectives in the study of religion and sport. Sports make ordinary people act in extraordinarily strange ways. This aim of this book is to encourage readers to develop a deeper appreciation for this curious human activity. Because whether it’s a soccer game in Africa, or a baseball game in New York City, we all have a great deal to learn about the games that people play and love.