The Swede. Or so the novel begins. Roth chronicles the life of Seymour Levov, who, in his past years, was known only as The Swede, the athletic star of Weequahic High. The form of the novel resembles that of The Kid from Tompkinsville, a children's book that The Swede reads in his athletic years. Roth's narrator, Nathan Zuckerman--who has appeared in many of Roth's
previous novels, meets The Swede
as an older man. Obsessed with the
Swede's 'fall' from
high school hero to glove maker, Zuckerman tells the tail of Levov's familial
trials: Seymour's daughter participates in a post-office
bombing meant to protest the Vietnam War; this despite that Levov himself was a
conscientious objector. Levov is haunted by his daughter's
actions, and, on witnessing homelessness, on the run from the
FBI, is horrified, believing that he has failed as an athlete, a father, a man. Throughout,
Roth paints the construction of the American Dream as a graceless construct, one whose
psychological hold intersects with politics, family, and sport; one that leads to
the
demise of Levov, and American citizens in general. Last, this novel provides a gateway to
discussion regarding Judaic studies.
"baseball need not obscure social
conditions but instead can serve as a revealing mirror
of American life...It also features some of the more disturbing characteristics of
U.S. society" (xi). The book contains three major sections, each of which centers a
single identity constituent: race,
class, and
gender, respectively. The section on race examines the material reality the construct of
'success in America' has both within and beyond American borders. It does this while
underscoring the contradictions that exist in a capitalist society that
both creates and works to dissolve oppressive constructs. Specifically focusing on
African-American, Asian American, Latino, and Italian American experience in baseball and
the nation at large, the authors in this section help to complicate the issue of race by
drawing attention to its intersectionality, as well as its symbiotic relationship with
space. The class section does the
same, but adds to the intersectionality narrative by
drawing out the tensions between agency, capitalism, globalization, and subjectivity. The
articles in this section discuss a range of topics, from Curt Flood's agency in creating
a free agent market, to how baseball's globalization affects those both inside of and
outside of the game. This sections is especially good at highlighting the process of
baseball's creation of separate, racialized leagues, and how that process was reliant on a
simultaneous domination of resources (money and the like) and ideologies in
America. The final section, gender, traces the history of women in the game and America,
at times taking issue with popular culture's portrayal of women in both. This section
will be
especially helpful in probing the movies, texts, and exhibits that are at the crux of this
course concerning gender. Although the final section lacks in intersectionality analysis,
that lack will also foster good discussion when coupled with essays concerning
social justice and feminism in contemporary America.
that attempts to offer a glimpse of how baseball and American culture intersect and change
in a symbiotic fashion. Narratives that couple the memorabilia illustrate how oppressions
that have plagued American culture have often been resisted through the game. For
example, a wooden home-plate used by interned Japanese represents how baseball offered a
space for Japanese athletes to create community in an otherwise oppressive
environment. As
well, a history of the baseball fan is offered that will allow us to develop discussion
regarding 'high' culture and 'low' culture, and the stadium as the site for the
contestations between that somewhat problematic binary. Last, the exhibit offers
memorabilia linked to significant moments in American history--Curt Schilling's cap that
was famously worn from 9/11 until the end of the 2001 World Series, for instance--and
probes how cultural memory and history
intersect.
of gender, race, class, and sexuality
Wilson
portrays Troy, the patriarch of a black family, as so
overbearing that he alienates his son Cory and prohibits him from pursuing his dream to
play football. This fence stems from the one created when Troy was part of the Negro
Leagues and was never asked to join the Major Leagues. At the same time, Troy destroys
the fence created at work by becoming the first black man to work as a driver at his
company. Ultimately, the play challenges the idea of 'progress' by illustrating that
while that older, rigid, and oppressive boundaries are broken, new ones often
take their place. Coupled with essays on the play and race, Fences will allow us
to
explore the way race, class, gender, and space intersect with one another in American
society.
belief among scholars and fans that
baseball is
reflective
an idealized America. Essays
that utilize Luce Ingiray's gender theory help to illustrate the masculinist,
heteronormative tendencies of baseball. Similar essays that center on race illustrate how
American values during World War II held baseball up as a mythic center
that negatively defined
itself against the Japanese and Communist population inside and outside of American
borders. Examining the consequences of expansion and consumerism, Ron Briley
offers a lens through which to view baseball as truly reflective of problematic, American
values; these
essays are juxtaposed with ones that illustrate the problems of accepting
baseball as integrated with the introduction of Jackie Robinson in
baseball--here, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington's theories of leadership are
aligned
with Roy Campenella and Robinson. In that same section, Briley writes that sexual
politics figured into Detroit, Boston, and Philadelphia's decision not to allow minority
players on their rosters, as late as 1956. Last, in a minute section on Pete Gray, the
one-armed outfielder of the St. Louis Cardinals, this book allows us to examine how
disability theory problematizes baseball as the American game. Overall, this book
provides insight into the
dynamic nature of baseball and how it may or may not be reflective of American culture in
the 20th century, all the while providing a theoretical framework of how to apply
intersectional theory to baseball discourse.