Sports & Society Reading Group: A Discussion with Frank Guridy
The Sports & Society reading group will meet on Friday, January 31st at 3 p.m. CST on Zoom for discussion with returning guest Frank Guridy, the Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University.
Frank’s latest book is The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play.
The “deep and impactful” story of the American stadium (Howard Bryant, author of Full Dissidence)—from the first wooden ballparks to today’s glass and steel mega-arenas—revealing how it has made, and remade, American life.
Stadiums are monuments to recreation, sports, and pleasure. Yet from the earliest ballparks to the present, stadiums have also functioned as public squares. Politicians have used them to cultivate loyalty to the status quo, while activists and athletes have used them for anti-fascist rallies, Black Power demonstrations, feminist protests, and much more.
Moving between the field, the press box, and the locker room, this book recovers the hidden history of the stadium and its important role in the struggle for justice in America.