SF-178 Sacred Hoops & Sneaker Pimps: Understanding the American Hoop Dream
This course is about the basketball hoop dream played out at the high school and college levels. We will study a wide variety of materials - novels, films, websites, reference works - to understand both the construction, and destruction, of the hoop dream in such diverse places as New York City, Seattle, rural Indiana, suburban Georgia, and the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Issues of race and culture will serve as guiding themes as we develop critical theory explaining why the hoop dream has persisted, and adapted, over time, to fit the needs of its believers and supporters.