Pastimes

In this cogent and well-researched book, Harold Schechter argues that, unlike the popular conception of the media inciting violence through displaying it, without these outlets of violence in the media a basic human need would not be met and would have to be acted out in much more destructive ways. Schechter demonstrates how violent images saturated the earliest newspaper, how art and disturbing images are not incompatible and how the demoaisation of comic books in the 1950s det up a pattern of equating testosterone fuelled entertainment with aggression.

This sixth edition reflects almost 40 years of scholarship as well as professional and personal practice in recreation, parks, and tourism. The text has become one of the most widely adopted titles in university courses worldwide. In this new edition of the book, the phenomenon of leisure is presented through new research findings and contemporary societal dilemmas to suggest that leisure is one of the most interesting, relevant, and exciting subjects of study today. The book reflects a wide range of material from the disciplines of leisure studies, sociology, psychology, economics, political science, anthropology, geography, the humanities, and media and cultural studies. Indeed, more than a textbook, this is very much a point of view. Leisure is presented as a human phenomenon that is individual and collective, vital and frivolous, historical and contemporary, factual and subjective, and good and bad. As a learning tool, this sixth edition teaches more. It contains updated and new illustrations of concepts through field-based cases, biographical features, exploratory activities, and research studies. In the first part, leisure is defined as a condition of humanity. Its meanings are traced through the humanities and history, as well as in todays connotations. The benefits of leisure are presented, ranging from freedom to pleasure to risk to spirituality, and leisures benefit to healthful well-being is demonstrated. As well, part one of the text presents theories for explaining leisure behavior. Part Two discusses leisure as a cultural mirror -- its societal context. Chapters include leisure and anthropology, geography, technology, popular culture, and taboo recreation. Finally, in Part Three, the functional side of leisure is explored in terms of its instrumental relationship to work, money, time, and equity. Leisure systems of public, private, and commercial sponsorship are described to confirm leisures utility. Instructor resources and a website for student resources available.

Pastimes is an introductory text. It gathers together the state of the art in leisure science and practice, reflecting as well a wide range of literature from the disciplines of sociology, psychology, economics, political science, and anthropology. More than a text that teaches the foundational meanings and roles of leisure, however, Pastimes is also a point of view. This text presents leisure as a human phenomenon that is both individual and collective, vital to survival and frivolous, historical and contemporary, good and bad. There are three main parts. Part one blends philosophy, religious studies, and the humanities in considering leisure as a condition of being human. Not only do chapters 1 through 4 establish the basic definitions and parameters for studying leisure, they ask readers to consider these concepts from their own personal framework. Part two is a focus on leisure's role in creating and reflecting society. Chapters 5 through 8 build on the personal relevancy of leisure discussed in part one and teach about leisure's contemporary cultural significance. These chapters rely on anthropology, sociology, and psychology concepts. Leisure's personal and cultural vitality are brought to a pragmatic conclusion in part three: leisure's use as a social instrument. Material from recreation and park studies is featured in Chapters 9 through 12.

The most personal and revealing Spenser thriller of all, Pastime is Robert B. Parker's electrifying masterpeice of crime fiction--a startling game of memory, desire, and danger that forces Spenser to face his own past. Ten years ago, he saved a teenage boy from a father's rage. Now, on the brink of manhood, the boy seeks answers to his mother's sudden disapearance. Spenser is the only man he can turn to. This time, it's more than a routine search for a missing person--Spenser must search his own soul...

Szymanski and Zimbalist pay special attention to the rich and complex evolution of baseball from its beginnings in America, and they trace modern soccer from its foundation in England through its subsequent expansion across the world.

Sports have long fascinated filmmakers from Hollywood and beyond, from Bend It Like Beckham to Chariots of Fire to Rocky. Though sports films are diverse in their approach, style, and storytelling modes, National Pastimes discloses the common emotional and visual cues that belie each sports film's underlying nationalistic impulses. Katharina Bonzel unravels the delicate matrix of national identity, sports, and emotion through the lens of popular sports films in comparative national contexts, demonstrating in the process how popular culture provides a powerful vehicle for the development and maintenance of identities of place across a range of national cinemas. As films reflect the ways in which myths of nation and national belonging change over time, they are implicated in important historical moments, from Cold War America to the class dynamics of 1980s Thatcherite Britain to the fragmented sense of nation in post-unification Germany. Bonzel shows how sports films provide a means for renegotiating the boundaries of national identity in an accessible, engaging form. National Pastimes opens up new ways of understanding how films appeal to the emotions, using myth-like constructions of the past to cultivate spectators' engagement with historical events.

Compton Reeves examines how people from all classes of medieval English society enjoyed themselves when not engaged in daily chores. Reeves' other works include Lancastrian Englishmen and The Marcher Lords