The Cheer Reader: Inside an American Institution: Terry and Jan Todd Series on Physical Culture and Sports
Autor Natalie G. Adamsen Limba Engleză Paperback – 6 oct 2026
Cheer is deeply associated with a wholesome, simple Americana. Yet this often clichéd image belies its complex history and current status as a global industry made up of diverse participants and forms. Indeed, cheerleading—its culture, controversies, and evolution—has always offered a revealing lens on race, class, gender, and sexuality in American society.
Cheerleading was born in 1869 as a diversion for Ivy League men. The Cheer Reader collects fourteen wide-ranging essays on what happened next and why it matters: how cheer became feminized, sexualized, professionalized, even radicalized. Contributors examine the role of cheer in the Civil Rights Movement, a landmark student free speech case, and the emergence of queer cheer teams in the 2000s. Other essays consider cheer’s record rate of injuries, social media “cheerlebrities” and eating disorders, and the working conditions of NFL and NBA cheerleaders. Amid these tensions between empowerment and objectification, cheer is only getting more popular, with some seven million participants worldwide. The Cheer Reader is a nuanced account of the activity they share and what it means today.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781477334577
ISBN-10: 1477334572
Pagini: 272
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 mm
Greutate: 0.45 kg
Editura: University of Texas Press
Colecția University of Texas Press
Seria Terry and Jan Todd Series on Physical Culture and Sports
ISBN-10: 1477334572
Pagini: 272
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 mm
Greutate: 0.45 kg
Editura: University of Texas Press
Colecția University of Texas Press
Seria Terry and Jan Todd Series on Physical Culture and Sports
Notă biografică
Natalie G. Adams is a professor of Social and Cultural Studies in Education at the University of Alabama. She is the coauthor of Cheerleader! An American Icon and Just Trying to Have School: The Struggle for Desegregation in Mississippi, and a coeditor of Geographies of Girlhood: Identities In-Between.
Cuprins
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction. Cheer Obsession (Natalie G. Adams)
- Cheer Note #1. The Big Cheer Umbrella
- Part I. Made in the USA: The Gendered and Raced Politics of Cheer
- Chapter 1. From Campus Leaders to Rowdy Boys: Masculinity in College Cheerleading (Dwaine Plaza, Kathleen Stanley, and Michelle Inderbitzin)
- Chapter 2. Sidelined No More: Cheerleading, Embodied Activism, and the Politics of Racial Belonging (Amira Rose Davis and Paulina A. Serrano)
- Cheer Note #2. The College Mascot
- Chapter 3. Pump It Up: Cheerleading Fights for Sports Legitimacy (Amy Moritz and Natalie G. Adams)
- Cheer Note #3. Cheer Lingo
- Chapter 4. Between Legitimacy and Femininity: Cheerleading and the Politics of Gender in Sport (Emily West and Laura Grindstaff)
- Part II. The Other Cheerleaders: Sex, Work, and Protest
- Chapter 5. Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making America’s Sweethearts (Lauren R. Nowosatka)
- Cheer Note #4. Cheer Stunts: Speaking the Language
- Chapter 6. “Look Like a Supermodel but Perform Like an Athlete”: Professional Cheerleading in a Post-#MeToo World (Lauren C. Hindman)
- Chapter 7. We’re Here, We’re Queer, Get Used to It: LGBTQ+ Adult Performance Teams in the United States (Laura Grindstaff)
- Cheer Note #5. Cheerleaders as Social Activists
- Chapter 8. Engendering the Body Politic: The Case of Radical Cheerleaders (Laura Grindstaff)
- Part III. Not Just Any Girl: Mediated Representations of Cheerleaders
- Chapter 9. Queering the All-American Girl: Cheerleading, Same-Sex Desire, and the (Not So) Good Girl (Barbara J. Brickman)
- Cheer Note #6. Cheerleaders in Popular Culture
- Chapter 10. Cheerleading and the Body: Disordered Eating, Public Surveillance, and Self-Regulation (Caitlyn M. Jarvis and Ashleigh N. Shields)
- Cheer Note #7. The Booty Bill
- Chapter 11. For the Love of Cheer: An Insider’s View (Isabelle Bennington)
- Part IV. Cheer Trouble
- Chapter 12. Gimme an F: Cheerleading Goes to the Supreme Court (Zoie Comer and Stanley J. Murphy)
- Cheer Note #8. Famous Cheerleaders
- Chapter 13. Monopolizing Spirit: Varsity and the Building of a Cheerocracy (Natalie G. Adams)
- Conclusion. Cheer Matters: Now and in the Future(Natalie G. Adams)
- Cheer Notes Answer Key
- Contributors
- Index
Recenzii
When we set out to make Cheer, I had no idea how deep cheerleading's roots ran—or how much I didn't know. Natalie Adams changed that. Her scholarship illuminates cheerleading as a cultural mirror, reflecting our country's evolving ideas about gender, race, and athleticism. The Cheer Reader is the book the sport has always deserved: rigorous, surprising, and full of heart. If watching Cheer made you love cheerleaders, reading this book will make you understand them.
The Cheer Reader is an engaging, insightful, and wide-ranging treatment of cheerleading from the early twentieth century to the present. Adams's anthology makes it obvious that the study of cheerleading offers a way to understand major themes in American history and culture—like sexism, capitalism, popular media, exploitation, and embodied activism—and thus enriches our knowledge of both sport and society. The writing is lively and readable, without sacrificing academic seriousness, and it will appeal to both a scholarly audience and anyone with an interest in cheerleading.
The Cheer Reader shows that cheer is full of contradictions: it is capitalist, enterprising, feminine, feminist, gender-segregated and co-ed, wholesome and sexualized. These essays, written by authors who clearly know the sport inside out, demonstrate that among many things, cheer is resilient. This book is an amazing source of knowledge and a fascinating read.
The Cheer Reader is an engaging, insightful, and wide-ranging treatment of cheerleading from the early twentieth century to the present. Adams's anthology makes it obvious that the study of cheerleading offers a way to understand major themes in American history and culture—like sexism, capitalism, popular media, exploitation, and embodied activism—and thus enriches our knowledge of both sport and society. The writing is lively and readable, without sacrificing academic seriousness, and it will appeal to both a scholarly audience and anyone with an interest in cheerleading.
The Cheer Reader shows that cheer is full of contradictions: it is capitalist, enterprising, feminine, feminist, gender-segregated and co-ed, wholesome and sexualized. These essays, written by authors who clearly know the sport inside out, demonstrate that among many things, cheer is resilient. This book is an amazing source of knowledge and a fascinating read.
Descriere
Wide-ranging essays on cheerleading, from the pep rally to the NFL sidelines to All-Star competitions, and why it matters.