1st Edition
Diego Maradona A Socio-Cultural Study
This is the first book in English to closely examine the life of Diego Maradona from socio-cultural perspectives, exploring how his status as an icon, a popular sporting hero, and a political figurehead has been culturally constructed, reproduced, and manipulated.
The volume looks at representations of Maradona across a wide variety of media, including literature, cinema, popular music, printed and online press, and radio, and in different countries around the world, to cast new light on topics such as the instrumentality of sporting heroes and the links among sport, nationalism, and ideology. It shows how the life of Maradona – from his origins in the barrio through to his rise to god-like status in Naples and as a postcolonial symbol of courage and resistance against imperial powers across the global south, alongside scandal and his fall from grace – powerfully illustrates themes such as the dynamics of gender, justice, and affect that underpin the study of sport, culture, and society.
This is essential reading for anybody with an interest in football, sport studies, media studies, cultural studies, or sociology.
Introduction: The Cultural Significance of Maradona
Pablo Brescia and Mariano Paz
Part I: Global Maradona
1. Maradona and Argentina: Four Takes
Pablo Brescia and Mariano Paz
2. Maradona and Spain: Mythologies of the Hero Narrative
David García Cames, Translated by Muireann Prendergast
3. Maradona and Italy: The Rise and Fall of the Man on His Own
Pippo Russo, Translated by Dolores Gadler
4. Maradona and Mexico: The Ecstasy and the Agony
Fernando Segura M. Trejo and John Williams
5. Maradona and Britain: An Unforgettable Affair
Raymond Boyle
Part II: Representing Maradona
6. Maradona and Literature: God Is Only Human
Pablo Brescia
7. Maradona and Cinema: Biopic, Documentary, Art Film
Mariano Paz
8. Maradona and Music: Soundscapes and Echoes of the Maradonian Song
Martín Virgili, Translated by Dolores Gadler
Part III: Reading and Writing Maradona
9. Spectres of Maradona: Chronicle/Fiction/Autobiography/Film
Ksenija Bilbija
10. The Maradona Story: Tropes in Biography and Autobiography
Alan Tomlinson
11. Argentinian Feminisms in the Light (and Shadow) of Maradona
Gabriela Garton and Julia Hang
12. Deifying Diego: The Church of Maradona and Beyond
Luca Bifulco
13. Writing Maradona
One and All
Martín Kohan, Translated by David Atkinson
God, the Era, and the Epic
Ana María Shua, Translated by Allison Febo
Language and Tears
Edgardo Scott, Translated by Ana Terrazas Calero
Saint Diego Maradona?
María Rosa Lojo, Translated by Allison Febo
M and M, to See or Not to See
Patricio Pron, Translated by Emma Byrne
Number Ten in Ten
Pedro Palou
Children of Maradona
Beatriz Sarlo, Translated by Ana Terrazas Calero
Biography
Pablo Brescia is a writer, critic, and Professor of Spanish at the University of South Florida, USA, where he directs the graduate program and teaches courses on contemporary Latin American literature and culture. His areas of research are the theory and history of short fiction and the intersection among science, technology, and literature in Latin America.
Mariano Paz is a Lecturer in Spanish and Subject Leader for Spanish at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland, where he is also an Associate Director of the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies. His research focuses on Latin American utopian and dystopian cinemas, science fiction, and popular culture.
'This text offers much to the academic specialist, the armchair sports watcher and those also interested in the broader issue of fandom and celebrity. With especially strong chapters on the Spanish and Italian dimension of Maradona’s career by Garcia Cames and Russo as well as Boyle on Maradona and Britain, the work is destined to have a wide and long-lasting appeal. Brescia and Paz have also opened an avenue of investigation and analysis that could prove valuable in the assessment of other major historical sporting figures most notably Shane Warne, Mohammed Ali, Arthur Ashe and Colin Kaepernick, with respect to gaining a deeper insight into wider manifestations of popular culture and the growing impact of sport in moulding a key component of evolving national identity, socio-political priority and nation-building.'
- Russell Holden, In the Zone Sport and Politics Consultancy
