Canadian Sport History

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Canadian Sport History

• Dr. Kevin B. Wamsley

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Outline - Methodology

• Sport
• History
• Problems and issues

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Why study sport?
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How do we study sport?
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History in the Making
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• 1

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What is History?- elements

• 1. Past
• 2. Evidence
• 3. Interpretation

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What is history?

• A reconstruction of the past from evidence
  available in the present.

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History The Key Processes

• Research
• Analysis
• Writing

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What do historians study?

• What do you think of when you hear the word
  history?
• What did you study in high school?

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• Chronology
• Politics
• Economy
• National
• Government
• Military
• Social daily life situated in broader contexts

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From Caroline Ware, The Cultural Approach to
History

• I know history isnt true Hinnessy, cause it
  aint like what I see every day in Halstead
  Street. If a man comes along with a history for
  Greece or Rome thatll show me the people
  fightin, getting drunk, makin love, getting
  married, owin the grocery man, and bein without
  hard coal, Ill believe there was a Greece or
  Rome but not before. History is a post mortem
  examination. It tells you what a country died
  for. But Id like to know what a country lived
  for!

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Problems

• Evidence
• Sources
• Interpretation

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Example from the Ancient World to the Present

• Ancient Egypt
• Greek philosophers
• Christians
• Middle Ages
• Greek to Latin
• 19th century
• Latin to German, French, English
• To 2004

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Understanding History

• only a part of what was observed in the past
  was remembered by those who observed it only a
  part of what was remembered was recorded only a
  part of what was recorded has survived only a
  part of what has survived has come to the
  historians attention only a part of what has
  come to their attention is credible only a part
  of what is credible has been grasped or can be
  expounded or narrated by the historian
  Louis Gottschalk

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Getting Lost in the Trenches

• World War I - Original Message Sent
• ENEMY ADVANCING ON THE WEST FLANK, PLEASE SEND
  REIFORCEMENTS
• World War I - Original Message Delivered
• ENEMY IS DANCING ON A WET PLANK FOR 3 AND 4
  PENCE

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The Classroom Trenches

• 1989 - U of A The Indians are against me and
  please send me to the forcement
• 1989 - U of A I want to play minnie, minney,
  minney moe
• 1991 - U of C 88 is on the way, please bring
  reinforcements
• 1992 - U of C Charlie Nash is the best tennis
  player in the world

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Continued

• 1993 - U of C My name is Franz, what happened
  to Hertz?
• 1994 - U of C The hosts of the past, below the
  masts, makes something different
• 1995 - U of C Its not history, its nothing
  like go, go, go
• 1996 - U of C Now there is only time for sport
  and entertainment

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Continued

• 1997 - UWO Dancing under broken men
• 1998 - UWO The sun, the moon, the boot! The
  shoe
• 1999 UWO Of the event that happened last
  night.
• 2004 UWO something about sports management
  exercise

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The Historical Process - Some Problems

• History has gender biases
• History is about winners, not losers
• History has race biases
• History has subject biases

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How do we avoid some of these problems

• A consciously applied framework of analysis
• Class gender race
• Critical

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• we need to ask what interests and coalitions of
  interests gave specific shape to the development
  of modern sport. We need to ask how the
  development of sport has affected the lives of
  men and women in different parts of Canada. We
  need finally to ask how contemporary sport in
  Canada is both influenced by and an influence on
  developments in other Canadian Institutions.

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Where do we go from here?

• Sport in the Ancient World
• Sport in the Middle Ages
• Europe and the Renaissance
• Aboriginal games
• New France
• The English
• Organized Sport