The Cheer Reader
Inside an American Institution
$61.31
- Paperback
272 pages
- Release Date
6 October 2026
Summary
Wide-ranging essays on cheerleading, from the pep rally to the NFL sidelines to All-Star competitions, and why it matters.
A staple of Americana, cheerleading is right up there with Fourth of July fireworks and a slice of apple pie. Yet this often clichéd image of cheer belies its complex history and current status as a global industry made up of diverse participants and forms. Indeed, cheerleading—its culture, controversies, and evolution—has always offered a reveali…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781477334577 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1477334572 |
| Author: | Natalie G. Adams |
| Publisher: | University of Texas Press |
| Imprint: | University of Texas Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 272 |
| Release Date: | 6 October 2026 |
| Weight: | 454g |
| Dimensions: | 229mm x 152mm |
| Series: | Terry and Jan Todd Series on Physical Culture and Sports |
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Critics Review
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 SportThe 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 GraceWhen 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 CheerleadersAbout The Author
Natalie G. Adams
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.
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