The Olympics at the Millennium
The Olympics at the Millennium
Power, Politics, and the Games
The Olympics thrill the world with spectacle and drama. They also carry a cultural and social significance that goes beyond the stadium, athletes, and fans. The Games are arenas in which individual and team athletic achievement intersect with the politics of national identity in a global context.
The Olympics at the Millennium offers groundbreaking essays that explore the cultural politics of the Games. The contributors investigate such topics as the emergence of women athletes as cultural commodities, the orchestrated spectacles of the opening and closing ceremonies, and the alternative sport culture offered via the Gay Games. Unforgettable events and decisions are discussed: Native American athlete Jim Thorpe winning—and losing—his two gold medals in 1912. Why America was one of the few countries to actually send Jewish athletes to the “Nazi Olympics.” The disqualification of champion Ewa Klobukowska from competing as a woman, due to chromosomal testing in 1967.
With the 2000 Sydney Games imminent, several essays address concerns with which every host country must contend, such as the threat of terrorism. Highlighting the difficult issues of racism and nationalism, another article explores the efforts of this country’s aboriginal people to define a role for themselves in the 2000 Games, as they struggle with ongoing discrimination. And with the world watching, Sydney faces profound pressure to implement a successful Olympics, as a matter of national pride.
SIDONIE SMITH is professor of English and director of Women's Studies at The University of Michigan. She has written many books, including Women on the Move: Twentieth Century Travel Narratives and Technologies of Motion. Both Schaffer and Smith co-edited (along with Jennifer Sabbioni) Indigenous Australian Voices: A Reader (Rutgers University Press)
List of Tables
INTRODUCTION
The Games at the Millennium by Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith
PART ONE: Cultural Difference and "Elite" Sports
1. The Olympics in Retrospect: Winners, Losers, Racism, and the Olympic Ideal by Cynthia Nadalin
2. Honor Restored: Jim Thorpe's Olympic Medals by Trace A. DeMeyer
3. Jewish Athletes and the "Nazi Olympics" by Allen Guttmann, Heather Kestner, and George Eisen
4. Racing with Race at the Olympics: From Negro to Black to African American Athlete by C. Keith Harrison
5. "We Showed the World the Nordic Way": Skiing, Norwegians, and the Winter Olympic Games in the 1920s by E. John B. Allen
PART TWO: Masculinities/Femininities/Sexualities
6. Men of the Game by Toby Miller
7. The Girls of Summer: Social Contexts for the "Year of the Woman" at the '96 Olympics by Leslie Heywood
8. Women's Sports: Coming of Age in the Third Millennium by Donna A. Lopiano
9. One Chromosome Too Many? by Cheryl L. Cole
10. The Gay Games: Creating Our Own Sports Culture by Vikki Krane and Jennifer Waldron
PART THREE: The Olympics: Drama, Spectacle, Media
11. Carrying the Torch for Whom? Symbolic Power and Olympic Ceremony by Alan Tomlinson
12. Whose Ceremony Is It Anyway? Indigenous and Olympic Interests in the Festival of the Dreaming by Lisa Meekison
13. Who's Sorry How? Drugs, Sports, and the Media towards 2000 by Andrea Mitchell and Helen Yeates
14. The Olympics of the Everyday by Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith
15. Terrorism, "Killing Events," and Their Audience: Fear of Crime at the 2000 Olympics by John Tulloch
PART FOUR: Politics at the Games
16. The Olympic Branding of Aborigines: The 2000 Olympic Games and Australia's Indigenous Peoples by Darren J. Godwell
17. Bidding for the Olympics: Sit Selection and Sydney 2000 by Ian Jobling
18. Sports for All? The Politics of Funding, Nationalism, and the Quest for Gold by Lynn Embrey
References
Notes on Contributors
Index
