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Terra Ludus

A Novel about Media, Gender and Sport

Authors:

  • Set in a fictional near future, Terra Ludus is a gripping tale of what can happen when individuals stand up for equal rights and makes us ask whether each new generation has to fight for social justice anew
  • Terra Ludus brings contemporary sociological research to life, creating a vital story that challenges our taken-for-granted understandings of gender, and offers discussion, creative writing and performance exercises that invite readers to explore their own lives
  • Asking what might happen when established ideas about women and sport are challenged head-on by women athletes, Terra Ludus takes readers on a roller-coaster ride through a future world that is both horrifying and wondrous
  • Through powerful storytelling, Terra Ludus confronts the spectacular failure of activists and sports fans to convince mainstream media to increase coverage of women’s sport; her compelling characters turn the standard narrative on its head and take readers along for the ride

Part of the book series: Social Fictions Series (SFS)

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Table of contents (32 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
  2. End of an Era

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 1-5
  3. Real Life?

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 7-9
  4. Friends

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 11-16
  5. Speaking Out

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 17-25
  6. Vid World

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 27-32
  7. The Meeting

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 33-47
  8. Back to Normality

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 49-57
  9. Eat Shit and Die

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 59-72
  10. Threat

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 73-78
  11. Getting Ready

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 79-82
  12. Back on the Court

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 83-91
  13. Training

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 93-97
  14. The Announcement

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 99-103
  15. PR

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 105-109
  16. Warning

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 111-114
  17. Authenticity

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 115-124
  18. Downtime

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 125-129
  19. More Support

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 131-143
  20. Reactions

    • Toni Bruce
    Pages 145-148

About this book

Set in the near future, Terra Ludus follows a group of friends as their lives are turned upside down by the downstream effects of the actions of the protagonist, Daniela Bartoli. Five years after the professional International Women’s Basketball League is unceremoniously dumped by its parent men’s organization, Daniela is working in Los Angeles as a freelance journalist and playing regular weekend pick-up games with her friends Mike, Constantin, Dominic and Simeon. Her relatively simple life changes almost overnight after her vlog, challenging a powerful media corporation to step up and broadcast women’s basketball, goes viral. The publicity sets off a chain reaction that brings the sport back into international prominence and sucks Daniela into a vortex of media and public visibility that leads her to question what is really important. In an imagined context where all professional sport takes place in a single country –something like a permanent Olympic Games – we follow a cast of characters with very different viewpoints on a roller-coaster, year-long, journey as they adjust to the new women’s league. Although fictional, Terra Ludus is grounded in decades of researching, theorizing, teaching and writing about women’s sport and media representation. Terra Ludus can be read entirely for pleasure or used as supplemental reading in courses in sport, media, gender, communication, journalism, sociology, creative writing, performance, physical education and cultural studies.
“Toni Bruce turns her keen literary eye on the spectacular failure of sport studies scholars and activists to convince mainstream sports media to increase coverage of women’s sport. Her gripping story turns this narrative on its head, and shows all of us how things could be different. Terra Ludus shows us how to move forward. This is the power of storytelling.” Norman K. Denzin, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
“Using popular culture pedagogically to think about popular culture and power, Terra Ludus is a valuable tool for critical thought.” Lawrence Grossberg, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“Terra Ludus is a sine qua non tale about Third Wave Feminism. Set in a future society, it asks: What could happen if dominant ideas about women, sports, sexuality, ethnicity and the media left-over from the Twentieth-Century are challenged head-on by women athletes? Finding out will keep readers reading, students buzzing.” Laurel Richardson, Ph.D., The Ohio State University
Toni Bruce, Ph.D., is a sport sociologist and media scholar at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, New Zealand.


Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Terra Ludus

  • Book Subtitle: A Novel about Media, Gender and Sport

  • Authors: Toni Bruce

  • Series Title: Social Fictions Series

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-770-2

  • Publisher: SensePublishers Rotterdam

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: SensePublishers-Rotterdam, The Netherlands 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-6300-770-2Published: 25 November 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVI, 228

  • Topics: Education, general

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access