Chris Ballard – författare

In this book the late Jeffrey Clark subjects the history of colonialism among the Wiru of Papua New Guinea to a fresh and subtle examination. He reflects upon his own fieldwork as an anthropologist as he scrutinizes the cultural construction of encounters and exchanges between New Guineans and Australians from the 1930s on. Colonized and colonizers alike are the focus of an analysis that draws upon theories of culture, temporality, discursive representation, and anthropology in the postcolonial era. Steel to Stone offers an original critique of several different theories and perspectives and, in its ensemble of frameworks, constitutes a highly innovative contribution to anthropological thinking about history and culture. Of especial interest is Clark's application, in a New Guinean context, of Foucault's analysis of `the way in which new regimes of power and knowledge are inscribed on the body'. The Wiru, faced with the impact of a colonizing culture, are shown to inscribe their own history on the body, and to read in it their understanding of particular events. Overall, Clark provides a compelling picture of a contemporary Melanesian culture, at the critical point at which the Wiru people are interpreting, invoking, and reinventing their history in the context of a developing nation state.

A globe-spanning narrative adventure about how the euphoria of cold water can transform — and even extend — your life.Lifelong athlete and Sports Illustrated writer Chris Ballard worried his days of exercise were numbered. Then he received a fateful text message about a trend taking hold around the world: submerging in freezing cold water.It wasn’t only thrill seekers or wellness gurus extolling its power. Swimmers have long known that when paired with cold, their sport delivers extraordinary rewards; now, modern research has shown that just a few minutes in cold water can deliver remarkable benefits: heightened energy and focus, reduced inflammation, and relief from depression and anxiety.In The Plunge, Ballard travels to laboratories and swims in waters around the world, from Portsmouth to the Pacific, tracing the roots of cold water swimming in ancient practices largely lost in the modern world.He immerses himself in the growing tribe of cold-water junkies of all ages, shapes and nationalities, from pioneers like Lynne Cox to visionaries like Ram Barkai, whose audacious dream of getting ice swimming into the Olympics edges closer to reality.And, from cold plunging to open water swimming to ice swimming, he tests his limits in this extreme sport, eventually becoming a US national champion, his body and mind transformed along the way.Blending history, cutting-edge science, colourful characters, and propulsive narrative storytelling, it’s a rollicking, eye-opening adventure that reveals how a single act — stepping into cold water — can unlock resilience, connection, meaning and joy.

Looking for a game? Here's your guided tour of the country's best pickup basketball courts, from the blacktops of Brooklyn to the asphalt of Anchorage to the gyms of Jackson, Mississippi. It's all inside: where the pros play, the most scenic runs in the land, and a ranking of the top five courts. Chris Ballard and three other former college players piled into a used Chevy van and traveled thirty-one thousand miles in seven months, playing at over a thousand courts in 166 cities in forty-eight states. This is the story of their roundball road trip and a guide to the places, people, and communities they encountered. More than a travel guide, Hoops Nation is "a celebration of the game of basketball as it is played in America." It includes guides to streetball fashion, the lingo of the courts, the etiquette of the pickup world, the tricks of old-guy basketball, and tips for the dunking impaired. Also included are profiles of playground legends and dispatches from the legions of basketball lifers who populate the country's courts. This book can tell you where they're running today, all over America. Who's got next?

This topical and conceptually innovative book proposes new perspectives on the theme of materiality which, since the 1980s, has animated work across and within disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences.The particular focus of the chapters in this volume is the materiality of knowledge produced through embodied encounters between people, places, and things in the Pacific Islands, New Guinea, Australia, and Myanmar. The authors consider how materiality mediates the ways in which knowledge is generated or acquired in encounters and becomes expressed through things and material forms of inscription – charts and maps; journals, letters, and reports; drawings; objects; human remains; legends, cartouches, captions, labels, marginalia, and notes; and published works of all kinds. The essays further address processes whereby materialized knowledge is archived, conserved, distributed, restricted, or dispersed – through serendipity, excess, loss, silence, absence, and suppression.This book will be of great interest to upper-level students, researchers, and academics in History, Anthropology and Oceania Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of History and Anthropology.

This topical and conceptually innovative book proposes new perspectives on the theme of materiality which, since the 1980s, has animated work across and within disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences.The particular focus of the chapters in this volume is the materiality of knowledge produced through embodied encounters between people, places, and things in the Pacific Islands, New Guinea, Australia, and Myanmar. The authors consider how materiality mediates the ways in which knowledge is generated or acquired in encounters and becomes expressed through things and material forms of inscription – charts and maps; journals, letters, and reports; drawings; objects; human remains; legends, cartouches, captions, labels, marginalia, and notes; and published works of all kinds. The essays further address processes whereby materialized knowledge is archived, conserved, distributed, restricted, or dispersed – through serendipity, excess, loss, silence, absence, and suppression.This book will be of great interest to upper-level students, researchers, and academics in History, Anthropology and Oceania Studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of History and Anthropology.

"One Shot at Forever is powerful, inspirational. . . This isn't merely a book about baseball. It's a book about heart." -- Jeff Pearlman, New York Times bestselling author of Boys Will Be Boys and The Bad Guys Won In 1971, a small-town high school baseball team from rural Illinois, playing with hand-me-down uniforms and peace signs on their hats, defied convention and the odds. Led by an English teacher with no coaching experience, the Macon Ironmen emerged from a field of 370 teams to represent the smallest school in Illinois history to make the state final, a distinction that still stands. There the Ironmen would play against a Chicago powerhouse in a dramatic game that would change their lives forever. In this gripping, cinematic narrative, Chris Ballard tells the story of the team and its coach, Lynn Sweet: a hippie, dreamer, and intellectual who arrived in Macon in 1966, bringing progressive ideas to a town stuck in the Eisenhower era. Beloved by students but not administration, Sweet reluctantly took over the ragtag team, intent on teaching the boys as much about life as baseball. Together they embarked on an improbable postseason run that buoyed a small town in desperate need of something to celebrate. Engaging and poignant, One Shot at Forever is a testament to the power of high school sports to shape the lives of those who play them, and it reminds us that there are few bonds more sacred than that among a coach, a team, and a town. "Macon's run at the title reminds us why sports matter and why sportswriting has such great power to inspire. . . [It's] one hell of a good story, and Ballard has written one hell of a good book." -- Jonathan Eig, Chicago Tribune

Chris Ballard sits down with the NBA’s most passionate, cerebral players to discover their tricks of the trade and to learn what drives them. He reveals the roots of Kobe Bryant’s limitless competitiveness; shadows LeBron James to figure out how he deploys his prodigious talent; and challenges Steve Kerr to a three-point shootout to analyze the mind-set of a pure shooter. Ballard tracks down renowned dunkers to explore the slam’s impact on today’s game, follows Shane Battier during his extensive pregame preparations, gets pointers from a free-throw shooting guru who once hit 2,750 in a row, and attends an elite NBA training camp to experience the pain that turns a prospect into a pro. Packed with fascinating characters and startling anecdotes, and grounded in the superb writing and the reportage that is the hallmark of Sports Illustrated, The Art of a Beautiful Game is an often witty, always insightful look at the men like Steve Nash, Dwight Howard, and Dirk Nowitzki who devote themselves to this elegant and complicated sport. It’s an inside read on the game that will surprise even diehard fans.