Over the course of the last century, American fiction writers and poets have used sports figures and sporting events in order to make significant points on themes of identity as they are
connected to gender, race, class, and nationality. The contributors to this volume examine American literature that uses sports as a trope to explore or disturb core values of this country.
They explore individual works in order to uncover the rich connections between those works' use of sports and issues of importance to American culture from approximately 1920 to the end of the
twentieth century.
