The institutional relationship between sport and the military appears to be intensifying. In the US, for example, which faced global criticism for its foreign policy during the "war on terror," militaristic images and discourses are commonplace at sporting events. This critical, interdisciplinary and international volume seeks to identify intersections of sport and militarism as a means to interrogate, interrupt, and intervene on behalf of democratic, peaceful politics. Viewing sport as a crucial site in which militarism is made visible and legitimate, it explores the connections between sport, the military and the state, and their impact on wider society and culture.

Michael L. Butterworth is Director and Associate Professor in the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University, USA. His research investigates the relationships between rhetoric, democracy and sport. In particular, he is interested in the extent to which commercialized sport may enrich or diminish democratic culture. He is the author of Baseball and Rhetorics of Purity: The National Pastime and American Identity during the War on Terror (2010) and co-author of the textbook Communication and Sport: Surveying the Field (2014). He has published in journals such as Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication and Sport, Communication, Culture & Critique, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, the Journal of Communication, and the Quarterly Journal of Speech

1. Sport and Militarism: An Introduction to a Global Phenomenon

[Michael L. Butterworth]

Section I: Sport, Militarism, and the State

2. Call of Duty: Sport and the Urban Citizen Soldier

[Kimberly S. Schimmel]

3. Weaponizing Kinesiology: Illuminating the Militarization of Sport Sciences

[David L. Andrews, Ross H. Miller, and Stephanie Cork]

4. Baseball Czars, War, and the U.S. Military

[Robert Elias]

5. "Aktiv, Attraktiv, Anders"? The Bundeswehr's Deployment of German Athletes as Sport Soldiers

[Mia Fischer]

6. Sport and the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa, 1899-1902

[Dean Allen]

7. The Absence and Presence of State Militarism: Violence, Football, Narcos, and Colombia

[Alfredo Sabbagh Fajardo and Toby Miller]

Section II: Ritual Productions of Militarism in Sport

8. "God Bless America": An Anthem for American Exceptionalism and Empire

[Ron Briley]

9. War Games: The Politics of War, Sport Spectacles, and Grieving in Canada

[Lisa McDermott and Jay Scherer]

10. The Paradox of Militaristic Remembrance in British Sport and Popular Culture

[John Kelly]

11. "Blood Warriors" and "Polite Siegfrieds": Militarism and Neo-Nationalism in German Media Discourse after the 2014 World Cup

[Karsten Senkbeil]

12. The Military in Brazilian Sport: A Long and Controversial Presence

[Victor Andrade de Melo and Mauricio Drummond]

13. Uniforms and Unanimity: Reading the Rhetorical Entanglement of Militarism and Sport through Mimetic Realism

[Roberto Sirvent and Duncan Reyburn]

Section III: Disciplining Gender through Sport and Militarism

14. The Phallus and the Pariah: The Cultural Politics of the Post-9/11 Sporting Body

[Michael Silk]

15. Trumpism, Tom Brady, and the Reassertion of White Supremacy in Militarized Post-9/11 America

[Kyle Kusz]

16. Teaching Violence: Corporal Punishment, Vertical Hierarchy, and the Reproduction of Militaristic Values in Contemporary Japanese Sports

[Aaron Miller]

17. Verifying Victory: The Militarized Politics of Sex Verification in International Sports

[Shannon Holland]

18. "The Woman Who Saved Football in Georgia": A Rhetoric of Masculine Virtue and Spartan Motherhood

[J. David Maxson]