On Boxing

Critical Interventions in the Bittersweet Science
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-03-205236-6
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 108 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 136 g

Reihe: Routledge Focus on Sport, Culture and Society

This book is a philosophical and cultural critique of contemporary boxing. It broadens and deepens our understanding of the empirically and normatively entwined complexities of a sport that is often misunderstood and all too easily reduced to stereotypes.

Moving between and among work in ethnography, sociology, urban studies and, especially, the philosophy of sport, and drawing on research in boxing gyms in the US, the book presents a stereoscopic view of professional boxing as both situated cultural practice and formalized competitive sport. It takes us inside and outside the ring in discussions of the cultural embeddedness of boxing and boxing gyms, the formation of pugilistic selfhood and ‘boxer cool’, the nature and function of combat sport violence and sparring, and the aesthetics and ethics of cornering a boxing match. With its interdisciplinary focus on the empirical and normative dimensions of professional pugilism, On Boxing makes explicit the bittersweetness of the ‘sweet science’ and provides a new theoretical framework for analysing boxing and, indeed, sport in general.

Written for a broad audience, this is important reading for scholars and students working in the areas of philosophy and sociology of sport and combat sport studies, as well as policy makers, coaches, and commentators engaged in the sport of boxing.

Chapter 3 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lewandowski, Joseph D

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Freizeitsoziologie, Konsumsoziologie, Alltagssoziologie, Populärkultur
• Sozialwissenschaften Sport | Tourismus | Freizeit Sport Kampfsportarten, Selbstverteidigung Boxen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction, Part I: Boxing and Culture, 1. Boxing and Urban Culture, 2. Pugilistic Selfhood and Structural Violence, 3. Boxer Cool, 4. Boxing and Social Capital?, 5. The Marginality of Urban Boxing Clubs, Part II: Boxing and Philosophy, 6. Outline of a Constraint Theory of Sport, 7. Boxing as the Bittersweet Science of Constraints, 8. Combat Sport Violence and Sparring, 9. Fight Plan Aesthetics, 10. Cornerman Ethics, Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Joseph D Lewandowski is a writer, researcher, educator, and avid pugilist. A former holder of the Fulbright Masaryk Distinguished Chair in Social Studies, he currently serves as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Central Missouri, USA.