The Cheer Reader: Inside an American Institution (Terry and Jan Todd Series on Physical Culture and Sports)

Wide-ranging essays on cheerleading, from the pep rally to the NFL sidelines to All-Star competitions, and why it matters. A staple of Americana, cheerleading is right up there with Fourth of July fireworks and a slice of apple pie.Yet this often clichéd image of cheer belies its complex history and current status as a global industry made up of diverse participants and forms.Indeed, cheerleading-its culture, controversies, and evolution-has always offered a revealing lens on race, class, gender, and sexuality in American society. Cheerleading was born in 1869 as a diversion for Ivy League men.The Cheer Reader collects fourteen wide-ranging essays on what happened next and why it matters: how cheer became feminized, sexualized, professionalized, even radicalized.Contributors examine the role of cheer in the Civil Rights Movement, a landmark student free speech case, and the emergence of queer cheer teams in the 2000s.Other essays consider cheer's record rate of injuries, social media "