New book from Dr. İsmail Sarp Aykurt: 'An Alternative History of Sport: Routine, Ritual, Rebuttal'

Researcher, journalist, and author Dr. İsmail Sarp Aykurt’s 4th and newest book, 'An Alternative History of Sport: Routine, Ritual, Rebuttal', has been released by Doruk Yayınları.

The book, which recently met with readers, examines sport with a different style and perspective while providing a historical and social assessment.

'REAL SOCIALISM' EXPERIENCES TAKEN TO THE CENTER

Focusing particularly on the communal aspects of sport and addressing the organic relationship between the working class and sport, the book includes original, timeless, and critical articles on many different topics, as well as excerpts from the alternative history of sport.

In the book, the experiences of the working class and the accumulations of "real socialism" are taken to the center and conveyed using an oppositional language.

On the other hand, the final section of the book features an interview with İlker Maga, a sports researcher known for his identity as a journalist, author, and photographer, who has also made significant contributions to the Turkish sports environment.

The following statements appear on the back cover of the book:

"This original study covers an important sporting, social, and historical cross-section that, although not often voiced, attempts a historiography by looking from that 'rarely mentioned' world.

On the other hand, many original sports articles that accompany and draw from this narrative throughout the book also make a critical intervention into the 'popular' side of hegemonic capitalist sport.

While underlining that sport also possesses a history, accumulation, and experience contrary to what is known, the work attempts to do this by conveying what is routine and what has turned into ritual, yet emphasizing the rebuttal of these two. Containing an original historical narrative, articles that go beyond classic sports content, and a special interview, the book goes beyond the customary conventions of sport.

In short, the book points out that what is 'routine' in the dominant sports ideology, and what is turned into 'ritual' by the same dominant forces, requires a class-based 'rebuttal'; it invites those who are curious about the alternative, social, and 'overshadowed' class traces of sport to question them together."

News Source: 12punto