tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post222800700264202758..comments2023-07-15T07:17:49.535-04:00Comments on Professional Wrestling in U.S. Popular Culture: Professional wrestling as scholarly?Sam Fordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17233749268141980625noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post-58902921533695218112014-09-09T10:33:20.978-04:002014-09-09T10:33:20.978-04:00There's been great work done in relation to wr...There's been great work done in relation to wrestling in terms of cultural studies/media studies/fan studies. We'll be reading quite a bit of anthropological work on wrestling, as well as folk studies, sociology, communication studies, etc. It certainly seems that political science work makes sense. Re: communication studies, I've seen wrestling used as a case study for rhetoric, crisis communication, etc. I'm reviewing an article for a journal on celebrity studies right now that uses pro wrestling as its case study...Sam Fordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17233749268141980625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post-16271957034347908152014-09-08T19:09:08.699-04:002014-09-08T19:09:08.699-04:00Sam, great point in terms of delving into a cultur...Sam, great point in terms of delving into a culture. Similarly, and something the authors and others have addressed, is that academic theories and concepts which certainly apply to other areas of sports and entertainment should apply to "sports entertainment". <br /><br />Of course that begs the question (at least to me): which academic lens provides the most insight to wrestling? Media studies and anthropology seem obvious, but how can other disciplines shine light on wrestling? <br /><br />I'll hold off on my own ideas of using political science for now.Timothy S. Richhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05759704121030358820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546665963755719151.post-3222533627225598492014-09-08T10:28:46.595-04:002014-09-08T10:28:46.595-04:00Great question here, Tim, and it does raise a ques...Great question here, Tim, and it does raise a question of "what should be studied." When I was talking to the BG Daily News reporter who is working on the story on our class, we started the discussion with, "How can you spend an entire semester studying pro wrestling?" We ended it with, "How can you cover all of that in a semester?" To me, pro wrestling makes for an ideal "case study" to examine culture because there are so many facets that are there and overtly/easy able to focus on...in part because wrestling is, as Barthes proclaims, "a spectacle of excess." There are the "meta" questions about wrestling that you can ask of the form, without talking about the stories. There's the study of the audience, the press reaction to wrestling, the nature of the types of characters or rivalries, the performance of a single match...but there's also wrestling as a "genre," and studies of particular storylines in wrestling. Think of this class as a cultural immersion...it's hard to study one's own culture, but if you go to a carnival world like pro wrestling, that holds up an exaggerated mirror to our culture, we can study the U.S.--and the sorts of stories we tell ourselves--through those "excesses," I think.Sam Fordhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17233749268141980625noreply@blogger.com