This book looks beyond the usual explanations of why sports fascinates, and also strives for a language that can frame the pleasure we take in watching athletic events. Gumbrecht argues that the fascination with watching sports is probably the most popular and potent contemporary form of aesthetic experience.

Anyone who has ever experienced a sporting event in a large stadium knows the energy that emanates from stands full of fans cheering on their teams. Although "the masses" have long held a thoroughly bad reputation in politics and culture, literary critic and avid sports fan Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht finds powerful, as yet unexplored reasons to sing the praises of crowds. Drawing on his experiences as a spectator in the stadiums of South America, Germany, and the US, Gumbrecht presents the stadium as "a ritual of intensity," thereby offering a different lens through which we might capture and even appreciate the dynamic of the masses. In presenting this alternate view, Gumbrecht enters into conversation with thinkers who were more critical of the potential of the masses, such as Gustave Le Bon, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, José Ortega y Gasset, Elias Canetti, Siegfried Kracauer, T. W. Adorno, or Max Horkheimer. A preface explores college crowds as a uniquely specific phenomenon of American culture. Pairing philosophical rigor with the enthusiasm of a true fan, Gumbrecht writes from the inside and suggests that being part of a crowd opens us up to an experience beyond ourselves.

What are the various atmospheres or moods that the reading of literary works can trigger? Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht has long argued that the function of literature is not so much to describe, or to re-present, as to make present. Here, he goes one step further, exploring the substance and reality of language as a material component of the world—impalpable hints, tones, and airs that, as much as they may be elusive, are no less matters of actual fact. Reading, we discover, is an experiencing of specific moods and atmospheres, or Stimmung. These moods are on a continuum akin to a musical scale. They present themselves as nuances that challenge our powers of discernment and description, as well as language's potential to capture them. Perhaps the best we can do is to point in their direction. Conveying personal encounters with poetry, song, painting, and the novel, this book thus gestures toward the intangible and in the process, constitutes a bold defense of the subjective experience of the arts.

What is it the legacy that humankind has been living with since 1945? We were once convinced that time was the agent of change. But in the past decade or two, our experience of time has been transformed. Technology preserves and inundates us with the past, and we perceive our future as a set of converging and threatening inevitabilities: nuclear annihilation, global warming, overpopulation. Overwhelmed by these horizons, we live in an ever broadening present. In identifying the prevailing mood of the post-World War II decade as that of "latency," Gumbrecht returns to the era when this change in the pace and structure of time emerged and shows how it shaped the trajectory of his own postwar generation. Those born after 1945, and especially those born in Germany, would have liked nothing more than to put the catastrophic events and explosions of the past behind them, but that possibility remained foreclosed or just out of reach. World literatures and cultures of the postwar years reveal this to have been a broadly shared predicament: they hint at promises unfulfilled and obsess over dishonesty and bad faith; they transmit the sensation of confinement and the inability to advance. After 1945 belies its theme of entrapment. Gumbrecht has never been limited by narrow disciplinary boundaries, and his latest inquiry is both far-ranging and experimental. It combines autobiography with German history and world-historical analysis, offering insightful reflections on Samuel Beckett and Paul Celan, detailed exegesis of the thought of Martin Heidegger and Jean Paul Sartre, and surprising reflections on cultural phenomena ranging from Edith Piaf to the Kinsey Report. This personal and philosophical take on the last century is of immediate relevance to our identity today.

A lively examination of the life and work of one of the great Enlightenment intellectuals Philosopher, translator, novelist, art critic, and editor of the Encyclopédie, Denis Diderot was one of the liveliest figures of the Enlightenment. But how might we delineate the contours of his diverse oeuvre, which, unlike the works of his contemporaries, Voltaire, Rousseau, Schiller, Kant, or Hume, is clearly characterized by a centrifugal dynamic? Taking Hegel's fascinated irritation with Diderot's work as a starting point, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht explores the question of this extraordinary intellectual's place in the legacy of the eighteenth century. While Diderot shared most of the concerns typically attributed to his time, the ways in which he coped with them do not fully correspond to what we consider Enlightenment thought. Conjuring scenes from Diderot's by turns turbulent and quiet life, offering close readings of several key books, and probing the motif of a tension between physical perception and conceptual experience, Gumbrecht demonstrates how Diderot belonged to a vivid intellectual periphery that included protagonists such as Lichtenberg, Goya, and Mozart. With this provocative and elegant work, he elaborates the existential preoccupations of this periphery, revealing the way they speak to us today.

On playing fields and street corners, in backyards and gyms, the people in this arresting array of pictures are unselfconsciously exploring the physical and emotional pleasures of competition and play. Each image offers an affirming and satisfying answer to the question at the heart of Game Face: What do girls and women look like when freed from traditional feminine constraints, using their bodies in joyful and empowering ways? To show America what women’s sports looks like, Jane Gottesman searched through the work of our country’s best photographers, from the newest photojournalists to artists such as Annie Leibovitz and Ansel Adams. The result is a unique and inspiring document of the tremendous impact that the growth of female sports at all levels is having on society—and on women themselves.

Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind meets Christopher McDougall's Born to Run in this immersive, investigative look at the hidden culture of cannabis use among elite athletes (as well as weekend warriors)--and the surprising emerging science behind the elusive, exhilarating "runner's high" they all seek. Pot makes exercise fun. The link between performance enhancement and cannabis has been an open secret for many years, so much so that with the wide-sweeping national legalization of cannabis, combining weed and working out has become the hottest new wellness trend. Why, then, is there still a skewed perception around this leafy substance that it only produces the lazy, red-eyed stoner laid out on a couch somewhere, munching on junk food? In fact, scientists have conducted extensive research that uncovers the power of the "runner's high"--the true holy grail of aerobic activity that was long believed to be caused by endorphins. In an extraordinary reversal, scientists believe marijuana may actually be the key to getting more Americans off their phones and on to their feet. In Runner's High, seasoned investigative journalist Josiah Hesse takes readers on a journey through the secret world of stoned athletes, describing astounding, cannabis-inspired physical and mental transformations, just like he experienced. From the economics of the $20 billion CBD market to the inherent inequalities in the enforcement of marijuana prohibition; from the mind-body connection behind the "runner's high" to the best way to make your own cannabis-infused power bars; Runner's High takes this groundbreaking science out of the lab and onto the trail, court, field, and pitch, fundamentally changing the way we think about exercise, recovery, and cannabis.

Whether it is our love of chance and vicarious thrill, our need to release anxiety and aggression, or our appreciation of the arc traced by a ball at a crucial moment – sports draw us in. The Allure of Sports in Western Culture contributes to contemporary debates about the attraction of sports in the West by providing a historical grounding as well as theoretical perspectives and contextualization. Bringing together the work of literary theorists, historians, and athletes, the volume’s dual emphasis allows us to better understand the historical and ideological reasons for the changing nature of sports’ allure from Ancient Greece and Rome to the modern Olympics. The findings show that allure is shaped by larger forces such as poverty, wealth, and status; changing moral standards; and political and cultural indoctrination. On the other hand, personal and psychological factors play an equally important, if less tangible role: our love for scandal, the seduction of deception and violence, and the physiological intoxication of watching and participating in sports keep us hooked. At the heart of the volume lies the tension between our love of sport and our knowledge of its only barely hidden cruelty, exploitation, and manipulation.

New York Times bestseller Rachel Ignotofsky's Women in Sports comes to the youngest readers in board format! Highlighting the pioneering efforts of women athletes, this board book edition of the original bestseller features simpler text and Rachel Ignotofsky's signature beautiful illustrations reimagined for younger readers to introduce the perfect role models for inspiring a love of sports. The collection includes diverse women across various sports, time periods, and geographic location. The perfect gift for every future athlete!

In this thoroughly innovative work, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht evokes the year 1926 through explorations of such things as bars, boxing, movie palaces, hunger artists, airplanes, hair gel, bullfighting, film stardom and dance crazes. From the vantage points of Berlin, Buenos Aires, and New York, the reader is allowed multiple itineraries, ultimately becoming immersed in the activities, entertainments, and thought patterns of the citizens of 1926.