Observations Inspired by the World Cup

I’ve watched far more soccer this summer than ever before, and have been fascinated, as a sports fan, by the game, for its elegance, its awkwardness, its futility and beauty and drama. As a cultural observer, I have marveled at the torrent of commentary generated by this global spectacle, and especially—here comes the American studies—commentary [...]

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Baseball on the World Stage

Nearly 100 years ago, baseball impresario Albert G. Spalding published his sprawling, 500-plus-page book, America’s National Game.  This 1911 tome, replete with illustrations by political cartoonist Homer Davenport, is one part history, one part autobiographical recollection, and many parts unabashed celebration of Spalding’s own contributions to the development of the game.  Spalding (1850-1915) was a [...]

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Blaming Technology for Culture

There’s an article in a recent NY Times about this diagram: It came from a PowerPoint presentation about the complexities of the American military strategy in Afghanistan. It’s safe to say that the slide, perhaps unintentionally and certainly unironically, certainly does portray complexity…. The article then went on to discuss the military’s current obsession with [...]

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Follow-up on Uganda

Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family, and founder of The Revealer, has done new reporting on the connection between American religious conservatives and the proposed anti-gay legislation in Uganda.  The connection comes through an organization called “The Family.”  As Sharlet’s book details, The Family is a secretive fundamentalist organization dating from the 1930s that seeks [...]

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Recent Developments in Uganda

In recent days we have seen a rather alarming convergence of events related to homosexuality, religion, and globalization.  Currently under debate in the Ugandan Parliament is a bill that would extended the country’s already draconian anti-gay laws, calling in some cases for the death penalty for homosexuals. As horrifying as this is, it gets worse, [...]

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