Sport, Literature and Media
| Module title | Sport, Literature and Media |
|---|---|
| Module code | EAS3197 |
| Academic year | 2020/1 |
| Credits | 30 |
| Module staff | Dr Chris Ewers (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 15 |
|---|
Module description
Sport has a central place in contemporary culture, yet literature dealing with sport occupies only a marginal position, with novels, plays and poetry struggling to compete with the dominant sports media of TV, film, radio and newspapers. Even sports biographies and autobiographies are more popular than the novel form, which loses its accustomed place as the pre-eminent mode for dealing with individual life-stories. The course looks at various forms of literature – novels, plays, poetry, ‘faction’ – and considers them in relation to the mainstream sports media, asking what literary treatments of sport do differently to these other forms of media. How, for instance, do they negotiate their own space in the marketplace, and what can that tell us about how these forms represent time, space and narrative, and how they position themselves in terms of audience?
Module aims - intentions of the module
The module aims:
- To encourage you to consider books and poetry in relation to non-literary texts.
- To enable you to be able to think critically about the role of literature in contemporary society and the negotiations between ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms of media by analysing film, TV, games, newspapers, and radio.
- To invite you to investigate the role of sport in society.
- To encourage you to think about novels, poetry and plays as specific forms that function in different ways to other media. The course asks what a sports novel does differently from a sports film or watching sport on TV.
- To encourage you to consider the relationship between ‘games’ and ‘normative’ existence, and to consider the connections between material and fictive reality; for instance, are narratives about boxing channelled in different directions to narratives about cricket? Does each sport help create its own type of story?
- To encourage you to contribute to a first on-line database that deals with sport and literature by collating and providing critical bibliographies of sports literature, sports scenes in non-sport fiction, sports films, and critical writing on sport.
- To stimulate you to frame your readings of sports literature within a range of contextual and theoretical concepts, such as queer theory, feminism and gender studies, and issues concerning race, class, narratology, space, and nation formation.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Demonstrate an ability to place sports literature in its wider cultural context
- 2. Enter into academic debates about the role of sport and sports media
- 3. Demonstrate an understanding of the connection between the possible worlds of the ludic and literature
- 4. Apply at an advanced level current debates in critical, cultural and literary theory to modes of writing and/or film production about sport
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. Demonstrate a greater awareness of how a fictive world connects to normative culture
- 6. Demonstrate an ability to think about how narratives are employed to modify the way we experience the world
- 7. Demonstrate an advanced ability to understand and analyse relevant theoretical ideas, and apply these to a wide range of cultural productions, including literary and/or film texts
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 8. Through essay-writing, demonstrate appropriate research and bibliographic skills, an advanced capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument, and a capacity to write clear and correct prose
- 9. Through research for seminars, essays and presentations, demonstrate advanced proficiency in information retrieval and analysis, including the opportunity to contribute to a subject-specific website
Syllabus plan
You will each week study texts that deal with a specific sport, such as boxing, baseball, football, cricket, American Football, and rugby league. Novels, plays and poems will be analysed alongside other media, including a detailed look at sports films. Each week a one-hour seminar, which focuses on ideas and approaches to sport, will be followed by a two-hour seminar that focuses on various texts. These texts will vary, but may include novels such as David Peace’s The Damned United, Don DeLillo’s Endzone, Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, poetry from writers such as Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy and Benjamin Zephaniah, and Richard Greenberg’s play Take Me Out. Films studied may include Rocky, The Wrestler, Zidane, Bend it Like Beckham, and This Sporting Life. The teaching will include workshop elements that consider how media such as newspapers and images frame the sports they cover.
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 33 | 267 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 22 | 11 x 2 hour seminars devoted to the main readings, presentations, and discussions of films |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 11 | 11 x 1 hour seminars devoted to the main readings, presentations, and discussions of films |
| Guided Independent Study | 15 | Film viewings - Five topic-related films, via Box of Broadcasts |
| Guided Independent Study | 70 | Seminar preparation (individual) |
| Guided Independent Study | 182 | Reading, research and essay preparation |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | 1000 words | 1-9 | Written feedback from tutor, with opportunity for tutorial meeting |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | 40 | 2500 words | 1-9 | Written feedback plus tutorial follow-up |
| Essay | 45 | 3000 words | 1-9 | Written feedback plus tutorial follow-up |
| Module participation | 15 | Ongoing | 1-7, 9 | Verbal and/or written feedback |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | Essay (3000 words) | 1-9 | Referral/Deferral period |
| Essay | Essay (3500 words) | 1-9 | Referral/Deferral period |
| Module participation | Repeat study/mitigation | 1-7, 9 | N/a |
Re-assessment notes
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
Primary texts may include:
- David Peace, The Damned United (2009)
- Don DeLillo, Endzone (1972)
- Richard Greenberg – Take Me Out (2006
- Joseph O’Neill – Netherland (2009)
- F.X. Toole – Rope Burns (2001)
Journals:
- Aethlon
- The International Journal of the History of Sport
- Journal of Sport and Social Issues
- Journal of Sports Media
- British Journal of Sport History
- North American Society for Sports History
Selected criticism (for indicative purposes):
- John McLeod, 'Cricketing Multiculturalism in Caryl Phillips's Playing Away ', IJHS 29.12, 2012
- Alison Donnell, 'Feeling Good? Look Again! Feel Good Movies and the Vanishing Points of Liberation in Deepa Mehta's Fire and Gurinder Chadha's Bend it Like Beckham', Journal of creative communications, 2 (1-2), 2007
- Hugh Dauncey and Douglas Morrey, 'Quiet Contradictions of Celebrity: Zinedine Zidane, Image, Sound, Silence and Fury', International journal of cultural studies. 11 (3), 2008
- E. Anderson, ‘Openly Gay Athletes: Contesting Hegemonic Masculinity in a Homophobic Environment', Gender & Society 16(6), 2002
- David Rowe, ‘Time and Timelessness in Sport Film’, Sport in Society, March 2008 11.2/3
- Jaime Schultz, ‘The Truth about Historical Sports Films’, University of Illinois Press, 41.1
- Susan J. Bandy, ‘The Intersections of Sport History and Sport Literature: Towards a Transdisciplinary Perspective’, IJHS, 33.14, Aug 2016
- Roland Barthes, Mythologies
- Allen Guttmann, From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports
- Claire Westall, ‘Her-Story of Caribbean Cricket Poetry’, Sport in History 29 (2002)
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
| Credit value | 30 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 15 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 6 |
| Available as distance learning? | Yes |
| Origin date | 14/02/2018 |
| Last revision date | 27/07/2020 |