EDUCAÇÃO FÍSICA CONSERVADORA PARA POLÍTICA RADICAL: O EXEMPLO DE FIDEL CASTRO

This essay examines the thoughts on sport and physical education of Fidel Castro who, on occasions, spoke like a nineteenth-century English private school educator in the muscular Christian tradition. I argue that, although we normally think of public intellectuals as traditional scholars who contribute to public debates, there is an unarguable case for considering the ideas of public figures who are also organic intellectuals in the Gramscian sense. With this in mind, the main focus of this particular study is on Castro and his views on subject matter that might initially appear to be outside his normal sphere of interest or his primary public remit.Este ensayo analiza los pensamientos sobre deporte y educación física de Fidel Castro, que, en ciertas ocasiones, habló como un educador inglés de escuela privada del siglo XIX, dentro de la tradición cristiana muscular. Defiendo que, aunque generalmente pensemos sobre los intelectuales públicos como estudiosos tradicionales que contribuyen para debates públicos, hay un argumento indiscutible para que se consideren las ideas de figuras públicas que también son intelectuales orgánicos en el sentido gramsciano. Con esto en mente, este estudio específico tiene su foco principal en Castro y sus visiones sobre un tema que, en principio, puede parecer fuera de su esfera normal de interés o de sus principales preocupaciones públicas.Este ensaio analisa os pensamentos sobre esporte e Educação Física de Fidel Castro, que, em certas ocasiões, falou como um educador inglês de escola privada do século XIX, dentro da tradição cristã muscular. Defendo que, embora costumemos pensar sobre os intelectuais públicos como estudiosos tradicionais que contribuem para debates públicos, há um argumento indiscutível para se considerarem as ideias de figuras públicas que também são intelectuais orgânicos no sentido gramsciano. Com isso em mente, este estudo específico tem seu foco principal em Fidel Castro e suas visões sobre um tema que, em princípio, pode parecer fora de sua esfera normal de interesse ou de suas principais preocupações públicas

Women and sport in Brazil: many roles, a single struggle

As a child growing up in the 1950s, I knew the names of lots of Brazilian athletes.  Amongst them were Gilmar, Djalma Santos, Didi, Garrincha, Vava and, of course, Pelé, only ten years older than me in 1958 when, as a seventeen year old, he announced himself to the world by scoring two goals in his country’s 5-2 win over Sweden in the World Cup Final. I doubt if I even have to point out that all of the athletes whose names I knew so well were male footballers. The only female Brazilian athlete who came to my attention around the same time was Maria Bueno who won the Wimbledon ladies’ singles title for the first time in that same summer when Pelé and his teammates were hitting the headlines and international football would never be quite the same again. Since then male footballers and even Formula One drivers have come and gone but any new knowledge on my part about women’s sport in Brazil has been lamentably limited, much to my shame even though it is largely a consequence of the global lack of attention that has been paid to women’s sport in the intervening years. I came to Women and Sport in Brazil, therefore, eager to learn and learn I did

Ordinary men in an abnormal society: men and masculinity in David Park's fiction

Ordinary men in an abnormal society: men and masculinity in David Park's fictio

Memories of a Celtic-minded par

Memories of a Celtic-minded pa

'My first victim was a hurling player...': sport in the lives of Northern Ireland's political prisoners

Much of the recent literature on sport, political violence, and terrorism has been focused on security issues and, more critically, their potentially damaging implications for civil liberties. Far less attention, however, has been paid to the place of sport in the lives of the so-called terrorists themselves. This article draws heavily on personal experience of interaction with loyalist and republican prisoners in the Maze between March 1996 and October 1999. The main focus of the article is on the ways in which these prisoners talked about and related to sport and the insights that discussions with them offered in terms of their wider political views. Sport was never dismissed by any of the prisoners I met as being of secondary importance to other matters—a diversion from the real world of politics. In fact, as our discussions revealed, politics was often presented as being intimately bound up with and embodied in sport cultures. On the other hand, their interest in sport also highlighted the fact that these were rather ordinary men, some of whom had shown themselves to be capable of committing seemingly extraordinary crimes

Baseball and Cuban national identity in Leonardo Padura's Havana quartet

Baseball and Cuban national identity in Leonardo Padura's Havana quarte

Sport, fiction and sociology: novels as data sources

This paper is primarily concerned with the types of data that are of value to sociologists - in this instance, particularly to sociologists of sport. It is argued here that we can and should add works of fiction to the more commonly accepted data sources. Whilst most academic writers may be cautious about the excessive use of invention even in personal narratives, others are less diffident. The paper examines representations of sport in fiction with specific reference to three novels, their central characters, and the insights provided by their fictional beings into the relationship between sport, individuals and society. The novels selected as evidence are Robert Coover’s The Universal Baseball Association, inc. J. Henry Waugh PROP (UBA), Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter (TS) and Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding (TAF). Based on the identification of emerging themes in the novels, and the application of relevant sociological concepts – anomie, alienation and figurations - it is argued that, although the novels’ authors are not sociologists, they could be and although the stories which they tell are not true, they too could be. It is these ‘facts’ that makes them valuable sources of data

Walking the streets. The flaneur and the sociology of sport

Walking the streets. The flaneur and the sociology of spor

Flawed heroes: exploring biographies of Scottish footballers

Flawed heroes: exploring biographies of Scottish footballer

Emotional grounds: stories of football, memories, and emotions

Central to the emotional experience of watching sport is memory – the capacity to recall great achievements, triumphs and defeats. For most sports fans, these memories are collective. However, this essay seeks to shed light on the ways in which sporting spaces – in this case football grounds – are also sites of acts of intimate emotional remembering that can exert a powerful hold over individuals even after (or, in some instances, because) many years have elapsed and a certain distance travelled. The essay briefly discusses the sociological significance of emotion, memory and place before adopting a narrative approach to describe and interrogate the author's own memories of particular moments in time and in sporting space. The stories that are told represent an invocation of emotions that are now indelibly associated with specific football grounds at particular times and also, in some cases, with the people with whom the author experienced these places. The essay seeks to demonstrate that the emotions that can be prompted by memories of football grounds often exceed the immediate excitement created by the event and, at least as importantly, necessarily vary from one spectator to another