Using literary and filmic representations of baseball, we will examine how historic and mythological figures and moments help to construct and problematize American citizenship. Building off cultural theory and coupling our literary endevours with important, American social movements and legal decisions, we will question in what ways baseball is (or is not) reflective of American constructions of identity. Last, using cultural theory of race, class, gender, sexuality, and power, we will discuss whether or not baseball provides a space that is free from a matrix of oppressions, or one that reinforces them.

Richard P. Horwitz's American Studies Recommendations--Government and Politics Page

Comprehensive in its offerings, this meta-site categorizes resources by discipline and/or theoretical framework. The Government and Politics meta-site offers access to webpages that chronicle important Supreme Court decisions, and the history of legal and political policy affecting American citizenship. Of particular importance also is a Material Culture meta-site that offers resources on how landscape and identity intersect with one another in urban areas. This meta-site may be especially helpful in understanding the consequences of erecting baseball stadiums in particular urban areas. For instance, from this meta-site is a gateway to the Three Cities Project, which illustrates how urban landscape and individual space for agency is created and restricted through architectural decisions in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Horwitz's overall site is not only comprehensive, but also valuable as it collects and organizes excellent resources in each of the disciplines and frameworks that it highlights.

History Matters

This website is a comprehensive, organized, searchable resource. Offering access to many different kinds of narrative histories--including eye-witness accounts, journalists' reportings, scholars' theories of specific moments in history--this website allows us to probe American history and mythology from multiple perspectives. Of special interest is a search under 'baseball,' which will return excerpts of the narratives that helped to create the myth of Babe Ruth; an account of migrant workers playing baseball in California during their lunch break; theory of baseball cards as cultural capital; an account of the changing characteristics of the baseball fan; and an essay on the Women's Professional League that started to maintain ticket sales when the great, male baseball players enlisted to fight in World War II (this league also helped to redefine the image of women who played baseball). This website also offers links to webpages that focus city landscapes, space, and the constructions of race, gender, sex, and sexuality, which will be at the front of this course.

Documenting the American South

This metasite is well-organized and allows one to search resources by topic or region of the South. As well, it offers recorded and transcribed first-person accounts of the work day, leisure time, and landscape of the South in the early 1900s. Ultimately, the title of this meta-site says it all--it provides easy access to what the south was like for the many people who lived in it. On many of the webpages this site provides access to, one can find accounts of the sort of spaces that African American, impoverished, and working people created to resist oppression and the processes of their doing so. Often, these spaces were sports-related, and helped to establish community among people otherwise separated by geography, race, or work hours.

New American Studies Web-Popular Culture and Media Studies; Borderlands; and Diaspora, Colonialism, and Postcolonialism

This easily navigatable site is maintained by Crossroads. Links from the Popular Culture and Media Studies page provide access to sites on baseball cards and a Jackie Robinson and Other Baseball Highlights resource. The Borderlands meta-site provides a gateway to pages that theorize the meaning of 'borderland.' Links to pages that suggest borders cannot be rigidly defined because ideologies and power structures permeate beyond national 'borders' will be especially helpful when we consider the meaning of American culture and its association with baseball. Especially extensive is the meta-site providing information on border studies of the Southwest. This meta-site provides a gateway to resources that define the study of borderlands, as well as resources that provide maps and photographs of the changing racial, economic, and geographic identity of Southwest America. The Diaspora, Colonialism, and Postcolonialism section provides a gateway not only to theory of postcolonialism, but also to websites on imperialism. As well, the metasite is categorized by country, which allows for ease in research on specific areas or histories. All of these sites will allow us to use the game of baseball as a vehicle for understanding how globalization problematizes the notion of a postcolonial world.

Voice of the Shuttle-Cultural Studies Page

This is among the best sites that provides theory that I've found. Works that help to define and problematize theoretical movements are available here. Especially comprehensive in its provision of contemporary theory, this site will provide quick access to the foundational theorists upon which many of the scholars we will be reading build. Theoretical pieces on borderlands, feminism, masculinism, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer studies are juxtaposed with those on literature. All of these will be especially helpful in discussing the fiction and drama in the course, as well as the contemporary, political and legal issues facing baseball. Moreover, many of the theoretical pieces available through this meta-site will provide background on American constructions of space, race, and identity in general. Ultimately, as we move through the course, this site will be helpful in articulating whether or not baseball is a good institution with which to approach an American Studies course; whether or not it helps to define and/or problematize what it means to be American.

American Memory

This website provides the best database of visual and aural culture I've come across. Photographs taken by renouned artists such as Ansel Adams as well as anonymous artists are found here. A search of baseball will provide links to visual representations--from movies to magazine covers--that, at one time, problematized the sign of athlete as male, heterosexual, and white. The same search will provide photographs and movies of baseball being played in internment camps and local baseball fields. Moreover, sheet music of folk and popular songs couples some of these images. Though this site allows access to a wealth of culture, it is difficult to 'surf' through. Overall, this site, when approached with a specific topic in mind, is very easy to navigate with appropriate search terms.

Diversity and Ethnic Studies Web

This site provides links to reliable, scholarly and journalistic websites. The goal of the site is to provide information on Asian American, Latin American, African American, Indian American, and LGBT theory, politics, and identities.

Society for American Baseball Research

This site offers great information on the history of baseball, who has played it, its justices, and injustices. It is especially good and problematizing the borders that have been established in American consciousness concerning baseball.

Public Space Forum

This site provides an excellent foundation on how space is created and taken away in the construction of urban buildings.

Japanese American Baseball History Project

This site offers a comprehensive understanding of the history of Japanese American baseball, and begins to underscore the question of nationhood and borders.

Latinos and Baseball

Far from comprehensive, and heavy on statistics, this site does offer a brief historical overview of the Latino player in baseball. When juxtaposed with the sites that provide information on Negro leagues, the information on this site helps us to understand the construction of race in the early 1900s.

Feminist Majority Foundation

This site explores contemporary issues regarding women in sport, using a scholarly feminist framework. However, the links on the left panel illustrate that the foundation itself explores issues concerning feminism beyond sport. As this course is using baseball as a vehicle to understand some of these same issues, the entire site may be helpful in understanding some of the feminist theory developing today.

Baseball Guru

This metasite provides historic accounts of the Negro League and Women's League. It also provides up-to-date information on the Women's World League, an interesting concept when we think of globalization and coalition building.

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