Younghan Cho – författare

What does the ‘Asian’ mean in Asian sport celebrity? With a collection of nine essays on Asian sport celebrities variously associated with Australia, Belgium, China, Japan, New Zealand, North Korea, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States, this book offers a comprehensive understanding of the multi-faceted construction of what it means to be Asian from the perspectives of race, ethnicity and regionality. Sport celebrity, as a modern invention, is disseminated from the West to the rest of the globe including Asia, and so are its functions of symbolizing particular values, desires and personalities idolized and idealized within their respective societies. While Asian athletes were historically depicted as weak, fragile and biologically ‘unsuited’ to modern sport, the emergence of more than a few world-class Asian athletes in the twenty-first century demands an in-depth inquiry into the relationship between sport celebrity and the representation of Asia.

This book is therefore essential for those interested in a range of socio-cultural issues—including globalization, transnationalism, migration, modernity, (post-)coloniality, gender politics, spectacle, citizenship, Orientalism, and nationalism—within and beyond Asia.

It was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

What does the ‘Asian’ mean in Asian sport celebrity? With a collection of nine essays on Asian sport celebrities variously associated with Australia, Belgium, China, Japan, New Zealand, North Korea, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States, this book offers a comprehensive understanding of the multi-faceted construction of what it means to be Asian from the perspectives of race, ethnicity and regionality. Sport celebrity, as a modern invention, is disseminated from the West to the rest of the globe including Asia, and so are its functions of symbolizing particular values, desires and personalities idolized and idealized within their respective societies. While Asian athletes were historically depicted as weak, fragile and biologically ‘unsuited’ to modern sport, the emergence of more than a few world-class Asian athletes in the twenty-first century demands an in-depth inquiry into the relationship between sport celebrity and the representation of Asia.

This book is therefore essential for those interested in a range of socio-cultural issues—including globalization, transnationalism, migration, modernity, (post-)coloniality, gender politics, spectacle, citizenship, Orientalism, and nationalism—within and beyond Asia.

It was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

"Modern sports" were introduced to Asia in the late nineteenth century as an innovation from the West, concurrently with the development of modern society in Asia. This book traces the historical developments of sporting cultures in Asia in specific local contexts – including Singapore, China, Myanmar, Taiwan, the Philippines, and India – and their intersections with larger social developments of colonialism, postcolonialism, nationalism, and the building of modern Asia and its place in a globalized world. The case studies herein present the social history of modern team sports with standardized rules such as basketball and cricket, and less familiar sports such as fives and chinlone, as they vacillate between global and local perspectives. This book also shows that modern sports have had an important influence on the makeup of everyday life in Asia, and the essays here also consider sports’ impact on gender, body culture, and celebrity culture, among other concerns.

This book painstakingly bridges the gaps between Asian Studies and Sports Studies in a way that reflects the historicity and multiplicity of sports in Asian societies. By adopting multi-disciplinary approaches, this book innovatively offers significant intersection between sociology, cultural studies and Asian studies of sport in Asia.

This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

"Modern sports" were introduced to Asia in the late nineteenth century as an innovation from the West, concurrently with the development of modern society in Asia. This book traces the historical developments of sporting cultures in Asia in specific local contexts – including Singapore, China, Myanmar, Taiwan, the Philippines, and India – and their intersections with larger social developments of colonialism, postcolonialism, nationalism, and the building of modern Asia and its place in a globalized world. The case studies herein present the social history of modern team sports with standardized rules such as basketball and cricket, and less familiar sports such as fives and chinlone, as they vacillate between global and local perspectives. This book also shows that modern sports have had an important influence on the makeup of everyday life in Asia, and the essays here also consider sports’ impact on gender, body culture, and celebrity culture, among other concerns.

This book painstakingly bridges the gaps between Asian Studies and Sports Studies in a way that reflects the historicity and multiplicity of sports in Asian societies. By adopting multi-disciplinary approaches, this book innovatively offers significant intersection between sociology, cultural studies and Asian studies of sport in Asia.

This book was published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

This book is the first comprehensive study on history, culture, and business of football in Asia. Football has been a symbol of the modern invention, a catalyst of local, national and regional identities, all time favourite among kids and youths, and even a harbinger for cultural globalization and consumerism in Asia. The economic growth and the current proliferation of football culture in Asia make it imperative to examine the complex relationship between the globalization of football and the local appropriation. The essays in the book deal with various topics on football in Asia from history of football in Asia, football and local, national and regional identities, to commercialization of football cultures, global mobility and athletes’ migration, and then new Asianism and football. This book argues that football in Asia contributes to reconfiguring both national and regional identities among football fans in the active interconnection with the global flows of football and cultural globalization without homogenizing Asian identities into a cosmopolitan one.

This is the textbook to presents football’s implication and influence on Asian populace and social changes while using football as a lens assessing the modern development and current diversification of Asia.

This book was published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.

This book is the first comprehensive study on history, culture, and business of football in Asia. Football has been a symbol of the modern invention, a catalyst of local, national and regional identities, all time favourite among kids and youths, and even a harbinger for cultural globalization and consumerism in Asia. The economic growth and the current proliferation of football culture in Asia make it imperative to examine the complex relationship between the globalization of football and the local appropriation. The essays in the book deal with various topics on football in Asia from history of football in Asia, football and local, national and regional identities, to commercialization of football cultures, global mobility and athletes’ migration, and then new Asianism and football. This book argues that football in Asia contributes to reconfiguring both national and regional identities among football fans in the active interconnection with the global flows of football and cultural globalization without homogenizing Asian identities into a cosmopolitan one.

This is the textbook to presents football’s implication and influence on Asian populace and social changes while using football as a lens assessing the modern development and current diversification of Asia.

This book was published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.

This book explores the transformation of cultural and national identity of global sports fans in South Korea, which has undergone extensive cultural and economic globalization since the 1990s. Through ethnographic research of Korean Major League Baseball fans and their online community, this book demonstrates how a postcolonial nation and its people are developing long-distance affiliation with American sports accompanied by nationalist sentiments and regional rivalry. Becoming an MLB fan in South Korea does not simply lead one to nurturing a cosmopolitan identity, but to reconstituting one’s national imaginations. Younghan Cho suggests individuated nationalism as the changing nature of the national among the Korean MLB fandom in which the national is articulated by personal choices, consumer rights and free market principles. The analysis of the Korean MLB fandom illuminates the complicated and even contradictory procedures of decentering and fragmenting nationalism in South Korea, which have been balanced by recalling nationalism in combination with neoliberal governmentality.