Cultures of Basketball Course Syllabus Appendix 2: Elective Supplementary Reading Summaries Assignment Schedule (Race, Gender, and Organizational Politics)
While it makes a certain sense to center our study on the game as it is played at its highest level, other aspects of the cultures of basketball can be revealed by looking away from the NBA or by looking at it through a particular lens. This will help us to highlight such issues as race, gender, and the relations between the game as spontaneously self-organizing and the game as organized by institutional hierarchies. For each of the six units, I’ve selected three histories that supplement the main required reading from FreeDarko in different ways:
Nelson George, Elevating the Game: Black Men and Basketball, provides a historical account of the game from the point of view of the unique contributions of African-American males.
Pamela Grundy and Susan Shackelford, Shattering the Glass: The Remarkable History of Women’s Basketball, traces the origins and evolution of women’s participation in the game.
Lars Anderson and Chad Millman, Pickup Artists: Street Basketball in America, brings together the stories of the great venues and players who excelled outside of “organized” basketball.
Each book has been ordered as “optional” through the campus bookstores and each book is on reserve in the Shapiro library. They are also easy to find on Amazon.com.
I’ve broken each book up into segments that correspond roughly to the periods covered by each of the first five of our six units. For each unit, you are to choose 1 reading from 1 of the books. For example, for Unit 1, you might choose to read the selection from Elevating the Game. For Unit 2, you might choose to read the selection from Shattering the Glass (or you might choose to continue with Nelson George by reading the Unit 2 selection from Elevating the Game). Whatever you choose to read, you are to write a 2 page, double-spaced, typed summary of what you’ve read. It is to be turned in in class on the first day of the next unit (i.e. your 2 page summary for Unit 1 is due on the first day of Unit 2, which is February 1).
The table below shows the reading selections from each book arranged by unit:
UNIT | SUPPLEMENTARY READING POSSIBILITIES (CHOOSE 1 FOR EACH UNIT) |
1 | George, Chapters pp. 20-102 Grundy and Shackelford, pp. 37-127 Anderson and Millman, pp. 1-55 |
2 | George, 105-161 Grundy and Shackelford, 127-144 Anderson and Millman, 57-87 |
3 | George, 162-199 Grundy and Shackelford, 145-191 Anderson and Millman, 89-143 |
4 | George 200-243 Grundy and Shackelford, 193-212 Anderson and Millman, 145-171 |
5 | Boyd, Young, Black, Rich & Famous Grundy and Shackelford, 215-257 Anderson and Millman, 173-203 |
6 | NO SUPPLEMENARY READING OR RESPONSE REQUIRED |
