The Sociology of Games, Sports and Leisure Activities - YMH547

• Title: The Sociology of Games, Sports and Leisure Activities
• Guaranteed by: Programme Historical Sociology (24-HS)
• Faculty: Faculty of Humanities
• Actual: from 2023 to 2023
• Semester: winter
• E-Credits: 6
• Examination process: winter s.:
• Hours per week, examination: winter s.:2/0, Ex [HT]
• Extent per academic year: 26 [hours]
• Capacity: 20 / unknown (20)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Level: specialized
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: doc. PhDr. Bohuslav Šalanda, CSc.
• Teacher(s): doc. PhDr. Bohuslav Šalanda, CSc.
• Class: Courses available to incoming students
• Is incompatible with: YMH047

Annotation

English

Last update: Mgr. Barbora Pincová (21.08.2012)

A follow-up seminar to the course "The Sociology of Games, Sports and Leisure Activities".

Czech

Last update: Mgr. Karolína Šedivcová (04.06.2019)

The aim of this lecture series is to explain the function of games, sports and other leisure activities in human culture and society. The course will introduce the basic research and theoretical approaches. Huizinga’s and Caillios’s texts are a good starting point for understanding the of social and cultural function of games. Modern and postmodern Pparadigmatic types of modern and postmodern: the stranger, flâneur, tourist, pilgrimer, player, collectioner, amateur, photographer etc. The eEmphasis iswill be placed on the an advanced analytical insight into the considered issues and on the historical and comparative perspective. Particular attention will be paid given to the the development of some sports.

Syllabus

English

Last update: doc. PhDr. Bohuslav Šalanda, CSc. (27.09.2018)

The Sociology of Games, Sports and Leisure Activities

 Bohuslav Šalanda

 Course overview:

The aim of this lecture series is to explain the function of games, sports and other leisure activities in human culture and society.

Substantive topics may include:

1/ Introduction. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz - Blurred genres (on the Web): World is possible to explain as a text, play and scene. Time in life: freetime activities. Ludic activities. Present trend: gamification in all areas.  The problem of defining risk and adventure. (On the Web: /PDF/ The Problems of the Redefining the Risk.) Sport heroism (celebrities, stars…). Leisure affords flexibility, choice, independent, self-determination, individual strategy, pleasure. Create real, possible and fictive worlds. Virtual worlds. Shifting in time axis: living history, play on past, reconstruction of past, clubs of history. Expressive form of culture,  performance aspect.

 2/ Preliminary considerations.

 Liminality – according to Victor Turner (The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure). General liminality. Antropology and sociology of experiences. Ludic experinces. Bricolage (Claude Lévi-Strauss) as a structural improvization.  The Cult of Amateur (Andrew Keen).

 3/ Definition of play. Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois. On the web is located classical and influential book by Johan Huizinga: Homo Ludens. A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Originally Leyden (Netherlands) 1938. Other sources – /PDF/ Roger Caillois: The Definition of Play. The Classification of Games.

 4/ Social typology. Postmodern personal patterns. Paradigmatic types of modern and postmodern: Stranger, flâneur, turist, pilgrimer, player, collectioner, amateur, photographer. Profesional versus amateur. See Zygmunt Bauman’s postmodern personal patterns. Long term migration – turism. Turism as variety of travel and as a kind of consumption. A tourist is half a pilgrim, if a pilgrim is half a tourist.

Cyberflâneur: postmodern spectator in Web space; voyeur of post-information age.

 5/ Body techniques. Marcel Mauss about body techniques. (See on the Web.)  When two do the same, it is not the same. Dancing as a  technique of body. 

 6/ Practices. Tactics. So, again: When two do the same, it is not the same. You cannot enter twice the same river. 

„Making Do“: talking, reading, dweling, cooking, walking in the City, driving in the desert…

Urban exploration – gaze; illegal and dangerous activity. Modern ruins (ghost town, reality hacking,   underground discovery.  It is the part of an adventure games. Limininality life. Exetreme research methods. See Garret Bradley: Explore Everything. Place – Hacking the City.

Michel de Certeau: The Practice of Everyday Life. Univ. of California Press 1984: „´Making Do´: Uses and Tactics“ (pp. 29 – 44). Spatial Practices; Uses of Language,; Ways of Believing.

See scan on the Web via Google /pdf/: Michel de Certeau: Chapter 11: „Walking in the City“.

Further reading on the Web - Nigel Trift: Driving in the City (19 pp.). Freeride – biking.

Other spatial practices – Marc Augé: Non-places. Introduction to an Antropology of Supermodernity. London – New York: Verso 2002. Augé introduces new concepts for places and non-places as symptoms for a shift from modernity to supermodernity

 7/ Sociology of sport.

Sport and modernity. New sports: frisbee, winsurfung…

 9/  Collecting as accumulation, selection, recyclation and obscession.

 10/ Lifestyle and ludic behaviour of marginal groups and subcultures.

Expressions of identity. Stylistic effects. Practices and tactics of daily life – space, performance and politics. The bricolage through which identities are constituted. Neo-tribes behaviour, totemic symbolism. 

See also books: Kevin Hetherington: Expressions of Identity: Space, Performance and Politic. London: Sage 1998. (Brief passage on the Web.)

Dick Hebdige: Subculture. The Meaning of Style. London – New York: Routledge 1979. (Also available as a e-book on the Web.)

 Top ten books for social sciences and humanities:

Eduardo Archetti: Masculinities. Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina. Oxford – New York: Berg 1999.

Michel de Certeau: The Practice of Everyday Life. Univ. of California Press 1984

Richard Schechner: Performance Theory. London: Routledge 1988.  

Victor Turner, V.: From Ritual to Theatre. New York: PAJ Publications 1982. 

 Evaluation:

The final paper or essay (about 10 pages long) can be teoretically and empirically oriented. It can analyze aspects of games, sports and ludic activities on the macro- and micro-level of behaviour (interactions, performance, trends, varieties…). There are many possibilities for topic here. You have freedom in your choice of topic.

The final presentation will include a written essay and may by supported by any additional questions. For example according to lectures or yours reading with bibliographical notices. 

 

 

 

 

 

Czech

Last update: Mgr. Karolína Šedivcová (04.06.2019)

Structure of Lessons:
1. Introduction to the course

2. Preliminary consideration. General liminality. Ludic experiences.

3. Defining play according to Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillios.

4. Social typology. Paradigmatic types of modern and postmodern player, collector etc.

5. Body techniques. Mauss about body techniques. Dancing as a technique of body.

6. Practices and tactics. Walking in the city, driving in the desert, urban exploration etc.

7. Sociology of sport. Sport and modernity. The development of sports.

8. Tourism as variety of travel and as a type of consumption.

9. Collecting as accumulation, selection, recycling and obsession.

10. A sociology of traffic. Driving, cycling and walking as a form of mobile interaction.

11. Lifestyle and ludic behavior of marginal groups and subcultures.

12. Final summary.

Required reading:

• BRYMAN, A.: The Disneyization of Society. London: Sage 2004. ISBN 978-0-7619-6765-1.

• CAILLIOS, R.: Man, Play and Games. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press 2001.

• de CERTEAU, M.: The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press 1984. ISBN 978-0-520-23-699-8.

• HUIZINGA, J.: Homo ludens. A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Angelico Press 2016. ISBN 978-1-62138-999-6.

• MacCANNELL, D.: The Tourist. A New Theory of the Leisure Class. Berkeley - Los Angeles - London: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-21892-5.

• URRY, J.: Sociology beyond Societies. Mobilities for the Twenty-first Century. London: Routledge 2000. ISBN 0-415-19089-4.

Recommended reading:

• ARCHETTI, E.: Masculinities. Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina. Oxford - New York: Berg 1999. ISBN 978-1859732618.

• CLIFFORD, J.: Routes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1977. ISBN 978-0674779617.

• RITZER, G.: The McDonaldization of Society. Los Angeles: Pine Forge Press 2008. ISBN 978-1-4129-5430-3.

• TURNER, V. : From Ritual to Theatre. New York: PAJ Publications 1982. ISBN 0-933826-16-8.

• WASKO, J.: Understanding Disney. The Manufacture of Fantasy. Cambrridge: Politi Press. ISBN 978-0-7456-1484-7.