The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch
Language: English
Published by Penguin Press, 2015
- Hardcover
- Used
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.ThriftBooks-Dallas
AbeBooks seller since July 2, 2009
Condition: Used - Very good
£ 4.94
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Add to basketItem description from seller
Seller Inventory # G1594205639I4N10
- Title
- The Professor in the Cage: Why Men Fight and Why We Like to Watch
- Author
- Jonathan Gottschall
- Publisher
- Penguin Press
- Publication year
- 2015
- Condition
- Very Good
- Dust jacket
- No Jacket
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 1594205639
- ISBN 13
- 9781594205637
- Item weight
- 1.25 pounds
When a mixed martial arts (MMA) gym moves in across the street from his office, Jonathan Gottschall sees a challenge, and an opportunity. Pushing forty, out of shape, and disenchanted with his job as an adjunct English professor, part of him yearns to cross the street and join up. The other part is terrified. Gottschall eventually works up his nerve, and starts training for a real cage fight. Hes fighting not only as a personal test but also to answer questions that have intrigued him for years: Why do men fight? And why do so many seemingly decent people like to watch?
In The Professor in the Cage, Gottschalls unlikely journey from the college classroom to the fighting cage drives an important new investigation into the science and history of violence. Mixed martial arts is a full-contact hybrid sport in which fighters punch, choke, and kick each other into submission. MMA requires intense strength, endurance, and skill; the fights are bloody, brutal, and dangerous. Yet throughout the last decade, cage fighting has evolved from a small-time fringe spectacle banned in many states to the fastest-growing spectator sport in America.
But the surging popularity of MMA, far from being new, is just one more example of our species insatiable interest not just in violence but in the rituals that keep violence contained. From duels to football to the roughhousing of children, humans are masters of what Gottschall calls the monkey dance: a dizzying variety of rule-bound contests that establish hierarchies while minimizing risk and social disorder. In short, Gottschall entered the cage to learn about the violence in men, but learned instead how men keep violence in check.
Gottschall endures extremes of pain, occasional humiliation, and the incredulity of his wife to take us into the heart of fighting cultureculminating, after almost two years of grueling training, in his own cage fight. Gottschalls unsparing personal journey crystallizes in his epiphany, and ours, that taming male violence through ritualized combat has been a hidden key to the success of the human race. Without the restraining codes of the monkey dance, the world would be a much more chaotic and dangerous place.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Jonathan Gottschall is a Distinguished Research Fellow in the English Department at Washington & Jefferson College. His research has been covered inThe New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, Scientific American, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and on NPR. His blog,The Storytelling Animal, is featured at Psychology Today. His book,The Storytelling Animal, was a New York Times Editors Choice Selection and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
ThriftBooks-Dallas
Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since July 2, 2009
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