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According to Pierre Bourdieu, “the particular difficulties encountered by the sociology of sport: it is disdained by sociologist, and despised by sportspeople”.
Nonetheless, sports sociology can help to depict the particularity of one society culture and history.
This course, based on the specific case of China, wants to show how Sports play a political and symbolic role in the construction of Chinese national identity from beginning of the 20th century until now.
In the first part, we will discuss how the “sports” imported from western nation and contributed to the nation building in China. The second part will be dedicated to sport education in totalitarian China (1949-1979). The third part will be dedicated to Elite sport at the age of opening and reforms area (1979-to now).
Through this course, students will understand how State and politic are shaping a cultural phenomenon like sport which is less universal than it seems to be.