In an essay of at least five and no more than eightpages, either accept or reject one (1) of the following theses:
Antebellum American prize fighting and antebellum American ball playing were fundamentally different social phenomenon.
American men living in cities before the Civil War engaged in sport primarily to define themselves, publicly, as manly.
Requirements and Guidelines:
Draw on assigned course readings in the construction of your answer. It will be evaluated based on quality of answer, quality of prose, and level of familiarity it demonstrates with assigned readings. Responses which demonstrate mastery of assigned readings and course themes will score well. Responses which demonstrate ignorance of assigned readings and course themes will score poorly, no matter what other merits they might possess. For this reason, you are strongly advised to limit your materials to those presented in the course.
Papers must be prepared in Times New Roman 12 pt., double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all four sides of the page. Papers must contain proper citation of all material taken from written sources and be free of errors in grammar, usage, spelling, and punctuation. You may use either MLA (parenthetical) or Chicago citation style, but you must properly credit all material taken from written sources.
Course Readings:
• Ben Rader, American Sports: From the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports
• Nancy Struna, People of Prowess
• Elliott Gorn, The Manly Art
• Warren Goldstein, Playing For Keeps
• Michael Oriard, Reading Football.