Play matters| Playground hoop, streetball, and possibility in racialized, contested terrain
Year: 2005
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This essay examines the influence and significance of basketball, specifically playground hoop, in African American communities.I'll attempt to place basketball within the cultural context of the black folk arts of story and song.Just as music and storytelling have long been used as mediums of transcendence and healing, I will argue that the play of basketball also provides a cultural space of recreation.Signifying, and, ultimately, salvation within Afiican American communities.The work of W.E.B.Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk, particularly in relation to the transcendent power of cultural practices, provides the preliminary theoretical entrance in situating playground hoop as a folk art.John Edgar Wideman's Hoop Roots will be the central text through which I explore basketball's endowment of possibility and growth.An autobiography of Wideman's love for the game of basketball.Hoop Roots captures basketball's great value as a cultural site of artistry, where the players are empowered to see their greater potential, to say, "I am," and to enjoy the sweet freedom of play.
Source: The Mathematics Enthusiast
Author: R. H. Roberts
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W602612944