Sports in U.S. History

This course explores the second half of the U.S. history survey (post-Civil War to the present) through the lens of sport. Students examine the historical and contemporary relationships between sport and society, identity, community, media, capitalism, and education. The course looks at the process through which the equal opportunity to participate in school sports became defined as a civil right, and, more recently, a human right. Students construct definitions of sport as play, labor, exercise, education, and fitness for citizenship, and discover how these overlapping definitions change across time and space.