In Praise of Athletic Beauty

With this study of athletic aesthetics, Stanford literature professor Gumbrecht scores as the sports world's answer to Marshall McLuhan. Noting high culture's condescension toward athletic events and stars, Gumbrecht sees America's sports essayists (Joyce Carol Oates, Norman Mailer, John Updike) as "an oasis in what is otherwise a wasteland." Abroad, it's a different ball game: "In global academia, sports as a social or a cultural phenomenon is at best a marginal topic." Gumbrecht goes beyond the usual conventions of sportswriting to probe the pleasures of sports spectatorship; his centerpiece is a philosophical, historical survey spanning centuries. He looks at the ancient Olympiads, whose champions were elevated to the status of demigods. Gladiatorial games were "metaphors for human existence," more brutal than the choreographed pageantry of knightly tournaments. After examining bare-knuckled boxing, Gumbrecht segues into the dawn of team sports and the 1896 revival of the Olympics. Little known is that the 1936 Berlin games were televised for "handpicked audiences," inaugurating the mutual dependency of sports and technology that characterizes our experience as spectators today. Gumbrecht's writing is as potent and graceful as the athletes he admires. (Apr. 1)