6,130 research outputs found
Playing the Ball: Constructing Community and Masculine Identity in Rugby
No full textThis thesis explores and examines the construction of a sense of community and masculine identity in the sport of rugby league. I pose the question of how the game constructs these identities, then the thesis proceeds to synthesise a working theoretical framework which draws upon ideas of the cultural production of class, community, history and gender to provide a focus for the research. I develop the way rugby league becomes an imaginary community, 'the game', and how this sense of community defines the ideas of masculinity and northem-ness, and creates both belonging and exclusion. My theoretical framework develops new ideas about how community is created, and how hegemonic masculinity is produced and maintained in sport. The thesis is situated in a particular research paradigm, the naturalist paradigm, which best serves the aim of exploring the field and developing theory through a grounded theoretical approach. This informs both the synthesis and development of theory around the concept of exploring the field, and suggests a particular methodology. This thesis is based on qualitative research I undertook in a field consisting of a number of rugby league clubs in a district I called Sudthorpe. In addition, I did fieldwork at a rugby union club and a women's rugby league club so that the theoretical concepts I developed could be expanded and explored further. This qualitative fieldwork was flexible enough to allow me to explore the social networks that extended outside Sudthorpe, and I used both ethnography and setni-structured interviews. In addition, I reviewed en-L literature, secondary sources, and consulted archives and experts. Coupled with a literature review, reflexivity and grounded theory, my research was triangulated by a multimethod approach that allowed for a synthesis of ideas. This synthesis of symbolic community and masculine identity in rugby provide the original ideas of the thesis
Introduction: Robert Snape and Karl Spracklen
No full textIntroduction to special issue of Leisure-Loisir - Histories of Modern Leisur
Karl Spracklen, Andy R. Brown et Keith Kahn Harris (eds.), « Metal studies ? Cultura
No full textKarl Spracklen, Andy R. Brown et Keith Kahn Harris (eds.), « Metal studies ? Cultural Research in the Heavy Metal Scene », Journal For Cultural Research, vol. 15, n° 3. Londres, Taylor & FrancisInternational audienc
Intelligent Equalisation Principles and Techniques for Minimising Masking when Mixing the Extreme Modern Metal Genre.
No full textThe intensity, complexity and energy of performance, combined with the power and density of the tones involved are characteristics of the extreme metal genre. These characteristics present numerous problems when striving to achieve the clarity, definition and hyper-realism of performance required for this genres production. Avoiding masking in a mix is a fundamental
aspect of clarity, definition, intelligibility and perceived loudness and due to the fact that masking especially occurs in a dense mix, and is more pronounced in low frequencies, is particularly applicable to mixing the downtuned extreme metal genre. Masking in simple terms is the ability of frequencies of one sound to obscure or inhibit (i.e. mask) the frequencies of
another sound. This paper will draw upon the first author’s eight years of experience producing within the metal genre, including releases through Sony and Universal and working with the likes of Colin Richardson and Andy Sneap
Karl Spracklen, a Gardener of Ideas: Leisure and a Dissenter’s Guide to Events
No full textA festschrift is perhaps an appropriately themed word to celebrate the writings of somebody named Spracklen. Both words have old Northern European origins, festschrift being German (a festival or celebration of writing) and Spracklen being Old Norse (a man with creaky legs). Both the German language and Old Norse have their origins in Indo-European Proto-Germanic, which over the centuries has traveled, evolved and influenced a range of languages that are spoken across Europe and beyond today, including the English language (House of Names, n.d.; Online Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). In a similar vein, the subject of this essay, Professor Spracklen (hereafter ‘Karl’), has done much of the same traveling, evolving and influencing through his academic and professional development, his serious leisure pursuits and extensive scholarly outputs. I muse over these and add my own critique in this piece, with attention to his work related to events, and specifically Karl’s writing on protest as event. The deeply social and political elements…
Before going any further and in the interests of openness and transparency I must state that Karl is a good friend; he is also a former colleague, and he was my PhD supervisor. I first encountered Karl in 2009 when I was in the third year of creating a new undergraduate program at the then-named Leeds Metropolitan University (renamed Leeds Beckett University in 2014). I was based within the ‘Tourism Subject Group’ which was instructed to diversify their ‘product’ offering. Prior to this I was Course Leader for a suite of Higher National Diploma (HND) programs in Business-related subjects, but my undergraduate degree was in Tourism Management, and my vocational background was in the entertainment-industries, so this seemed like the perfect new opportunity for me. In 2007 I moved across faculties to take on this role
Ethnographies of the imagined, the imaginary and the critically real: Blackness, whiteness, the north of England and rugby league
No full textRugby league is part of the white, working-class (male) culture of the north of England, and is a sport that is used by its supporters to (re)produce both an imagined community of nostalgic northernness and an imaginary community of locally situated hegemonically masculine belonging. The invented traditions of its origins link the game to a white, working-class twentieth-century culture of mills, pits, terraced houses and pubs; a culture increasingly marginalised, reshaped and challenged in this century. In this paper we use two medium-term, ethnographic research projects on rugby league (one from Spracklen; the other an on-going project by Timmins) to explore northernness, blackness, whiteness and our own roles in the ethnographies as 'black' and 'white' researchers researching 'race' and identity in a community that remains (but not exclusively) a place for a working-class whiteness to be articulated. We argue that our own histories and identities are pivotal in how we are accepted as legitimate ethnographers and insiders, but those histories and identities also posea critically real challenge to us and to those in the community of rugby league with whom we interact. © 2010 Taylor & Francis
Dreaming of drams: Authenticity in Scottish whisky tourism as an expression of unresolved Habermasian rationalities
No full textIn this paper, the production of whisky tourism at both independently owned and corporately owned distilleries in Scotland is explored by focusing on four examples (Arran, Glengoyne, Glenturret and Bruichladdich). In particular, claims of authenticity and Scottishness of Scottish whiskies through commercial materials, case studies, website-forum discussions and 'independent' writing about such whisky are analysed. It is argued that the globalisation and commodification of whisky and whisky tourism, and the communicative backlash to these trends typified by the search for authenticity, is representative of a Habermasian struggle between two irreconcilable rationalities. This paper will demonstrate that the meaning and purpose of leisure can be understood through such explorations of the tension between the instrumentality of commodification and the freedom of individuals to locate their own leisure lives in the lifeworld that remains. © 2011 Taylor & Francis
Hegemony in postmodernity: Lifeworld colonization and the instrumentalization of leisure
No full textThis paper synthesizes Gramscian and Habermasian perspectives on new conditions of life and hegemonic struggle that the postmodern initiated in the closing decades of the 20th Century (Jameson, 1984). Drawing from Habermas, it discusses the decline of the public sphere and the colonization of lifeworlds in advanced capitalism, and, focusing on leisure as a bundle of practices (Spracklen, 2009, 2015), explores the implications of these developments for the organization of bourgeois hegemony and the prospects for transformative alternatives
Female, Mosher, Transgressor: A 'Moshography' of Transgressive Practices within the Leeds Extreme Metal Scene
No full textThis paper examines and reconceptualises transgression in the Leeds extreme metal music subculture through theories of performance, embodiment and spectacle. The spectacle, for Debord (1967), is a social relation that is alienating and mediated by images, visuals, and technology. At a live extreme metal concert fans subvert social norms, challenge gendered expectations, and disregard norms of etiquette and decency. Moshing is the most visible and sensuous example of transgression within the extreme metal scene. It is an aggressive, physically demanding performance which embodies resistance to the impersonal and disillusioning world of the spectacle (Halnon, 2004). The pit is a transgressive space that is itself transgressed by women who participate in this masculine, chaotic space, disrupting the homosocial bonds of male solidarity (Gruzelier, 2007). This paper offers an ethnographic account of a female metal fan participating in the transgressive practice of moshing within the Leeds metal music scene- a moshography
Functions of autoreception: Karl Ove Knausgård as author-critic and rewriter
No full textKarl Ove Knausgård made his entry into the literary field as a critic in the 1990s, and he has
since 1998 made his mark as a novelist and essayist. The six-volume autobiographical work
Min kamp (2009-2011) is in essence about what it means for him to be an author. This thesis
investigates Knausgård’s strategies as a critic, essayist, and as the author of Min kamp to
position himself and his poetics within the literary field and a literary tradition. Specifically,
it examines the functions of autoreception, i.e. self-criticism, implicit in Knausgård’s role as
an author-critic, an author who writes literary criticism, and as a rewriter, an author who
rewrites his own texts and the context and poetic intentions of his previous texts. Thus, this
thesis aims to answer the question what are the functions of criticism and of rewriting for Karl Ove
Knausgård as an author?
Part I outlines a new framework of autoreception devised for examining the functions of
criticism and rewriting. The proposed common denominator is that both function to
establish, position, and validate an author-image. Ultimately, a new understanding of the
narration in Min kamp as autoreceptive is offered. Part II examines a largely unexplored area
of Knausgård’s work, namely the strategies of Knausgård as a critic prior to publishing his
first novel, and how Knausgård rewrites himself during this period in Min kamp. Part III
focuses on Knausgård’s rewriting of the period between writing his second novel and up
until he begins writing Min kamp. It investigates the strategic functions of the narrative
structure, the functions of the essayistic and critical passages, and the functions of the
distance and unity between past and present author-images that Knausgård creates in his
rewriting.
This thesis thus aims to contribute to the scholarship regarding Karl Ove Knausgård by
conducting an author-study that examines the relationship between criticism and poetics. In
addition, it aims to contribute to a broader field of research by offering a theoretical and
methodological framework of autoreception, which works across the boundaries of critical,
essayistic, and literary texts
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