Mimesis, Metaphor, and Sports’ Liturgical Constitution: Ricoeurian and Augustinian Contributions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a well-written and coherent paper that seems to develop a logical argument. Regards the general flow and coherence of the argument, it seems to hang together very well and is well written. I have not provided comments for the author because of my lack of knowledge of the theoretical basis of the paper. I hope the other reviewer(s) might be able to comment on the content.

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing my paper. I am pleased that you find it in good order structurally and grammatically. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Line 223-224 needs editing (correct: It does not directly mediate a particular ideology or cultural horizon)

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing my paper. I have made the suggested change (and others).

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, I enjoyed reading this manuscript and appreciate that it is attempting a critical and nuanced engagement with the “sport as liturgy” literature – a literature which is largely not critical enough. The manuscript successfully engages in philosophical hermeneutics to contribute to this literature, and successfully makes its case.

That said, I hoped the essay would push the conclusions further. Of course, these particular directions may be idiosyncratic to me and my own interests, but I do think further engagement on them is needed to continue pushing a critical discourse on “sport and/as liturgy.”

I noted a few minor typographical errors as I encountered them but did not generally read as a copy editor.

Line 223, possible grammatical error: should read “It ‘does’ not…”

Line 268, missing the word “is”

In terms of theoretical framing, I really think cultural studies could be of help to this argument, e.g., Stuart Hall on “articulation” and the general scope of work on “culture” in the Raymond Williams tradition. But doing so isn’t necessary for publication, more a suggestion for the future reading/thinking if the author continues to explore these topics.

A few more specific comments/questions:

1)    The first thing I’m interested in goes alongside of the authors arguments and has to do with “why” liturgy is such a successful way of framing sport. I think the author does well here. But the follow-on question is “so what” or “to what effect.” This, I think, Z. Smith partially alludes to (if also failing to push far enough). That is, what is the political valence of designating “special” ontological essences like ritual, ludicity, and autotelicity as the essence of sport [as liturgy]. Here I think critical work on categorization and classification by scholars like Russell McCutcheon could be immensely helpful. It seems to me that these designations of sport as culturally “special” in some way enable perhaps both the protectionist and conservative interpretations of sport as well as those that see it as liberatory. I think the author could push forward on this.

2)    I have questions about the positioning Novak’s work. My reading of Novak is that he is at best a whitewashing uncritically pro-capitalist (classical) liberal, or some kind of colorblind neoconservative. I really don’t know how to read Novak on sport apart from his writing on political economy or race. And when read in this context, his writing on sport becomes explicitly problematic, whether it has to do with racializing essentializations or an uncritical promotion of American civil religion, giving the extent both of these dynamics are foundational to modern big-time sport (in the U.S. at least).  

3)    Why stop at “sports can be good or bad metaphors/good or bad liturgies”? How do we move forward constructively? It is self-evident to me that they can be good/bad. From the conclusion, it seems like this is tackled in a larger forthcoming work. But I think at least some indication of this would be helpful for the article. Perhaps especially since citations of Novak and Heidegger don’t reference to their own politics and how this shapes their respective scholarship.

4)    Perhaps the article isn’t really meant to address these questions – it is, after all, mostly about how liturgy works via/as metaphor.  But insofar as these are raised in the manuscript, they seem worth addressing (and especially since some of the literature referenced tries to tackle normative issues in different ways. E.g., Burstyn, J. Smith, Scholes, etc.).

5)    Perhaps more germane to the sport as liturgy conversation, I think it would be helpful if the author engaged more directly with a couple of the competing interpretations in the literature. The author does engage Edgar and “negative liturgy” well. And as the author cites in Footnote #1, both John White and Lincoln Harvey have offered “liturgical” readings of sport, though not noted in the footnote is that White/Harvey have fundamentally different perspectives. White sees sport as sacramental, while Harvey sees sport as radical contingency (Z. Smith references this debate in his article). And then of course there are the more social scientific readings like Z. Smith’s which aren’t necessarily interested in using liturgy as (at least only) a theological category. Smith suggests a reason why liturgy has begun to circulate to discuss sport and pins it to assumptions or descriptions about sport/religion as categories with common ontologies. White and Harvey are also interested in ontology, though theologically so. SO, my question for the author is: how are you contributing to this conversation? The hermeneutical approach seems to suggest that the author may be more interested in a social scientific or humanistic interpretive approach, rather than strictly theological. But other comments in the manuscript make it seem like the author is interested in the theological significance. I would encourage the author to engage more in this debate about sport as “liturgy” and to be more explicit about their theological and/or other ideological commitments as it will help to locate this article in the larger conversation unfolding in the literature.

I hope these comments are helpful. I truly did enjoy reading this article and look forward to its publication.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

See attached word document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf