Sport, Spectacle, and NASCAR Nation : Consumption and the Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism

"Sport, Spectacle, and NASCAR Nation critically interrogates stockcar racing's ascendance into the upper-echelon of the North American sporting popular. While most contributions to the public discourse gloss over NASCAR's exclusively white racial identity politics, its underlying patriarchal gender politics, its overtly conservative political commitment, its hyper-Christian orthodoxy, and its omnipresent commercialism, this book connects the dots and critically analyzes the problematic nature of this non-natural, strategically-orchestrated sporting spectacle"-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction....Pages 1-18 Sporting Automobility: Contextualizing NASCAR Nation....Pages 19-44 The Road and Serfdom: Theorizing the Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism....Pages 45-66 Consuming NASCAR Nation: Space, Spectacle, and Consumer-Citizenship....Pages 67-91 NASCAR and the “Southernization” of Sporting America....Pages 93-118 Racing for Jesus: Sport in Theocratic America....Pages 119-149 Part I NASCAR Nation As/In Petrol Empire....Pages 151-161 Part II Militarizing NASCAR Nation....Pages 162-183 Selling Out NASCAR Nation....Pages 185-212 Concluding Thoughts....Pages 213-218 Back Matter....Pages 219-288