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Document Type: | Book |
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All Authors / Contributors: |
Ugo Corte |
ISBN: | 9780226815442 0226815447 9780226820453 0226820459 |
OCLC Number: | 1274198814 |
Description: | xiii, 270 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 24 cm |
Contents: | Introduction -- From land to water -- Beyond the boil -- Fun and community -- Failing to succeed, failing to become -- Reciprocal influence -- From adventure to entertainment and toward sport -- One last ride -- Epilogue : gone but here, yet barely in sight. |
Responsibility: | Ugo Corte. |
Abstract:
Reviews
Publisher Synopsis
"Dangerous Fun is bound to be recognized as an essential contribution to the ethnography of risk and the sociology of emotions. Part-memoir, part-history, and part-theory, Corte brilliantly describes why men and women in the Hawaiian surfing world are willing to put themselves in jeopardy in search of a high that is simultaneously personal and communal. Not since Matthew Desmond's On the Fireline have we had such a powerful account of the intersection of pleasure and danger. One need not have straddled a surfboard to appreciate that a commitment to sociality allows for the profound attraction of controlled peril." -- Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University "Dangerous Fun is a landmark in the sociology of sport, showing how fear is converted into excitement and fun. Big wave surfing is a team sport: waiting for the wave far off-shore, calling alarms of dangerous waves, circulating narratives of near-death disasters that are the turning point to dropping out or becoming a big-wave surfer. One has to seek out high danger in the presence of a like-minded group to get hooked on this kind of emotional/ physiological transformation. Corte's book is a fundamental theory of risk-taking of all kinds, even addiction." -- Randall Collins, author of Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory "The North Shore of O'ahu is the Vatican of surfing: small in area but densely packed with lore, power, secrets, and great waves. Ugo Corte goes straight to the heart of one of its abiding mysteries-the subculture within the subculture-the exceptional people who ride very big waves. He illuminates surfers' mentality, diversity, self-expression, social bonds and rituals with dramatic narrative and extensive interviews." -- William Finnegan, author of Barbarian Days Read more...

