Cheer Reader

Natalie G. Adams is a professor of Social and Cultural Studies in Education at the University of Alabama. She is the coauthor of Cheerleader! An American Icon and Just Trying to Have School: The Struggle for Desegregation in Mississippi, and a coeditor of Geographies of Girlhood: Identities In-Between.

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction. Cheer Obsession (Natalie G. Adams)Cheer Note #1. The Big Cheer UmbrellaPart I. Made in the USA: The Gendered and Raced Politics of CheerChapter 1. From Campus Leaders to Rowdy Boys: Masculinity in College Cheerleading (Dwaine Plaza, Kathleen Stanley, and Michelle Inderbitzin)Chapter 2. Sidelined No More: Cheerleading, Embodied Activism, and the Politics of Racial Belonging (Amira Rose Davis and Paulina A. Serrano)Cheer Note #2. The College MascotChapter 3. Pump It Up: Cheerleading Fights for Sports Legitimacy (Amy Moritz and Natalie G. Adams)Cheer Note #3. Cheer LingoChapter 4. Between Legitimacy and Femininity: Cheerleading and the Politics of Gender in Sport (Emily West and Laura Grindstaff)Part II. The Other Cheerleaders: Sex, Work, and ProtestChapter 5. Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making America's Sweethearts (Lauren R. Nowosatka)Cheer Note #4. Cheer Stunts: Speaking the LanguageChapter 6. "Look Like a Supermodel but Perform Like an Athlete": Professional Cheerleading in a Post-#MeToo World (Lauren C. Hindman)Chapter 7. We're Here, We're Queer, Get Used to It: LGBTQ Adult Performance Teams in the United States (Laura Grindstaff)Cheer Note #5. Cheerleaders as Social ActivistsChapter 8. Engendering the Body Politic: The Case of Radical Cheerleaders (Laura Grindstaff)Part III. Not Just Any Girl: Mediated Representations of CheerleadersChapter 9. Queering the All-American Girl: Cheerleading, Same-Sex Desire, and the (Not So) Good Girl (Barbara J. Brickman)Cheer Note #6. Cheerleaders in Popular CultureChapter 10. Cheerleading and the Body: Disordered Eating, Public Surveillance, and Self-Regulation (Caitlyn M. Jarvis and Ashleigh N. Shields)Cheer Note #7. The Booty BillChapter 11. For the Love of Cheer: An Insider's View (Isabelle Bennington)Part IV. Cheer TroubleChapter 12. Gimme an F: Cheerleading Goes to the Supreme Court (Zoie Comer and Stanley J. Murphy)Cheer Note #8. Famous CheerleadersChapter 13. Monopolizing Spirit: Varsity and the Building of a Cheerocracy (Natalie G. Adams)Conclusion. Cheer Matters: Now and in the Future(Natalie G. Adams)Cheer Notes Answer KeyContributorsIndex

"When we set out to make Cheer, I had no idea how deep cheerleading's roots ran—or how much I didn't know. Natalie Adams changed that. Her scholarship illuminates cheerleading as a cultural mirror, reflecting our country's evolving ideas about gender, race, and athleticism. The Cheer Reader is the book the sport has always deserved: rigorous, surprising, and full of heart. If watching Cheer made you love cheerleaders, reading this book will make you understand them." - Greg Whiteley, creator of Netflix's Cheer and America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders"The Cheer Reader is an engaging, insightful, and wide-ranging treatment of cheerleading from the early twentieth century to the present. Adams's anthology makes it obvious that the study of cheerleading offers a way to understand major themes in American history and culture—like sexism, capitalism, popular media, exploitation, and embodied activism—and thus enriches our knowledge of both sport and society. The writing is lively and readable, without sacrificing academic seriousness, and it will appeal to both a scholarly audience and anyone with an interest in cheerleading." - Susan K. Cahn, University at Buffalo, author of Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Women's Sport"The Cheer Reader shows that cheer is full of contradictions: it is capitalist, enterprising, feminine, feminist, gender-segregated and co-ed, wholesome and sexualized. These essays, written by authors who clearly know the sport inside out, demonstrate that among many things, cheer is resilient. This book is an amazing source of knowledge and a fascinating read." - Georgia Cervin, University of Western Australia, author of Degrees of Difficulty: How Women's Gymnastics Rose to Prominence and Fell from Grace