World Literature and the World Cup

 

I'm surprised and intrigued to see World Literature Today (one of the best cultural magazines available) turn substantive attention to soccer/futbol "through the eyes of women writers, artists, and dogged female competitors." The special section is timed for the Women's World Cup finals in Germany this summer.

Daniel A. Simon, WLT's editor-in-chief, says this:

If ... female athletes have in many ways achieved legitimate status alongside male players in the realm of soccer, can the same be said of the representation of women's perspectives in writing about sports? It is doubtless difficult to judge on the basis of a small sampling, but if the contributors—Mona Nicole Sfeir, Ana María Moix, Sandra Kingery, Yrsa Roca Fannberg, Jennifer Doyle, Elísabet Jökulsdóttir, and Clarice Lispector—to this issue's "World Cup / World Lit 2011" special section are any indication, these women's voices are ingenious, diverse, and demanding to be heard, yet in no way do they conform to a reductive "feminine" archetype.

Section guest editor John Turnball (who is the force behind The Global Game) introduces the feature dryly, but with interesting background:

Colombian anthropologist Beatriz Vélez describes soccer as a game of antagonisms, beginning with the idea of propelling a ball without the hands. Women players add another opposition. Their participation disturbs a system of interpretation geared toward affirming masculine identity. For practitioners such as the Chosen Few Lesbian Soccer Club in Johannesburg, football is freedom, playing a public display of joy. Such players live "out" in an often homophobic society that sells the illusion Brazilian educator Paulo Freire felt was widespread in human community—"to be is to be like."

Throughout the world, the laws of soccer are fundamentally controlled by males—specifically, eight white men who compose the International Football Association Board and who judge, in secret, on rules affecting women and men. The laws are hallowed. The 1863 laws of association football were featured, alongside the Magna Carta and Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica, in a recent British television series, Twelve Books That Changed the World. In this section, poet and artist Mona Nicole Sfeir examines what might be called the shadow side of the male laws.

I'll have to read the full magazine to get a better gauge on this section (only Jennifer Doyle's essay on "Soccer, Art, and Desire" is available online), but my first impression is that there's a lot that's gamely mined here about the language and signifiers implict in women playing the world's most popular sport -- a sport that is particularly celebrated in developing nations. What I don't see yet in WLT feature -- but I'm hopeful for, once I get a copy in print -- is a love of women's soccer for itself as a beautiful game, rather than for just what it "means." I want to see stories from the game, not just about it. I want play. I want action. I want this literature of women's soccer to be, like the game of Brazilian soccer star Marta (pictured above), both in the air and on the ground.

Related:

• Isak Interview #7: Daniel A. Simon (Isak)
• Top Ten Reasons Why This Feminist is a Sports Fan (Bitch Magazine)

 

About the image: Marta in artful action. Credit: practiceplaywin.com

Comments

[Erik Hoffner]

Nice, yes, soccer/football has spawned so much culture, usually good. Just the tradition of chant is enough to rivet a cultural historian. And the way the rules of the game are applied, it's so loose at times, open to interpretation by refs and FIFA officials...it's as human a cultural artifact as any sports get.

Erik

[Anna Clark]

"Just the tradition of chant is enough to rivet a cultural historian ..."

I love that! Thanks, Eric.