Contact: Ginny Davis [email protected] (901) 843-3470 John Kerr [email protected] (901) 843-3873
Jan. 11, 2001
Politics of Gambling, Sport and Race Relations, Bad Shakespeare Among Spring Course Offerings at Rhodes College
(Memphis, Tenn.)--Gambling in America has become a hot topic among political science students at Rhodes College.
"Gambling in America: Politics and Policy," a new course at Rhodes this spring, has elicited such interest from students that it has been divided into two sections. The course has its roots in research conducted by Rhodes professors Michael Nelson and John Mason.
Since New Hampshire was the first state to adopt a lottery in 1964, 38 states have approved some form of gambling. Consequently, the proliferation of lotteries and casinos has created a host of issues with which state governments have had to contend. Nelson and Mason became interested in the politics behind gambling legislation and began studying the phenomenon in 1998.
"Gambling has become a pervasive, accepted form of entertainment in the U.S., where it wasn't 50 years ago," Mason said. "The incredible prominence of gambling as an activity has become a national trend, but that national change has occurred due to political decisions made at the state level."
The course is organized according to types of gambling: lotteries, commercial casinos, tribal gambling and an "other" category that includes gambling on the Internet and sports wagering.
Mason and Nelson have written a book, Governing Gambling, to be published this spring by the Century Foundation. They are working on a second book, The Politics of Gambling, set for publication by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2002.
Another new course Rhodes is offering this spring explores the connection between the institution of sport and race relations in American society. Students in history professor Russell Wigginton's "African-Americans Through Sport" class will use books, periodicals and films to study examples of the social, economic and political implications of sports on American culture and African-Americans over time.
"Sports has oftentimes served as a source of intra-racial and interracial unity, but has also caused some heated divisions," Wigginton said. "We will discuss how and why this is the case."
Wigginton cites an incident at the 1968 Olympics and actions by boxer Muhammad Ali as examples. In the 1968 Olympics, black track stars John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their black glove-encased fists and lowered their heads during the playing of the American national anthem at the awards ceremony, a gesture that caused much controversy.
Ali, formerly known as Cassius Clay, converted to the Nation of Islam and befriended Malcolm X. He was an outspoken boxer whom many despised at the time but eventually came to appreciate, Wigginton says. Ali's religious beliefs, combined with his throwing his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River and spending time in jail for resisting the military draft, created much debate.
Wigginton's class will also look at present-day black athletes and determine characteristics that make some, regardless of their ability, more or less popular than others.
Golf champion Tiger Woods and tennis-playing sisters Venus and Serena Williams are examples of blacks in "non-traditional" arenas who are currently dominating their sports.
The Philadelphia 76ers' Allen Iverson represents the hip-hop generation as a basketball star, Wigginton says. "He refuses to sell out to the establishment, and as a result, is both popular and frowned upon in society; sort of a microcosm of the old versus new conflict in present-day society."
The talents of an English literary star are the focus of a course Rhodes will offer for the second time. William Shakespeare, widely considered the greatest playwright of all time, produced a few stinkers in addition to his most beloved works.
Cynthia Marshall, chair of Rhodes' English department, will teach "Bad Shakespeare, " a course that looks at several of Shakespeare's least popular plays and poems. The course will allow students to question how they define what is good and what is bad in literature.
The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus, for example, has been criticized for its confusing plot and gratuitous violence. "T.S. Eliot said it was one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written," Marshall said.
Other examples of what is deemed bad Shakespeare include the poem Venus and Adonis, criticized for its inscrutable plot and confusing visual imagery, Coriolanus, All's Well That Ends Well, Pericles and Cymbeline.
Marshall says Henry VI is so boring that she won't teach it in her classes.
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