For my final paper, I plan to write about the spread of baseball from America to East Asia. I’ll most likely focus on its spread to Japan, but I’m open to focusing on other readings depending on what I find in my sources. Likewise, I don’t yet have a very specified research question, but will likely focus on elements of imperialism and the spread of cultural values that accompanied the game of baseball. Again, though, I am open to exploring a different angle depending on what I find in my initial readings.

Prospective sources:

• Bill Brown, “Waging Baseball, Playing War: Games of American Imperialism,” in Cultural Critique, No. 17, 1990.
• Ronald Briley, “Baseball and American Cultural Values,” in OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 7 No. 1, 1992.
• Thomas W. Zeiler, “Basepaths to Empire: Race and the Spalding World Baseball Tour,” in The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Vol. 6 No. 2, 2007.
• Donald Roden, “Baseball and the Quest for National Dignity in Meiji Japan,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 85 No. 3, 1980.
• David P. Filder, “Introduction: Baseball in the Global Era: Economic, Legal, and Cultural Perspectives,” in Indiana Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2000.
• Masaru Ikei, “Baseball, Besuboro, Yakyu: Comparing the American and Japanese Games,” in Indiana Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2000.