Transtemporal sport histories; or, rethinking the ‘invention’ of American basketball

Abstract

The predominant narrative on the history of basketball assumes that James Naismith ‘invented’ the game in 1891. This narrative argues the game emerged as a modern sport different in design and significance from pre-existing, ‘pre-modern’ ballgames. Naismith is now generally accepted as the singular ‘inventor’ of modern basketball. This essay introduces the ‘transtemporal history’ in conversation with postcolonial and decolonial theory as a framework for critiquing the notion of ‘inventions’ in sport history. A transtemporal framework, informed by French historian Fernand Braudel’s concept of the ‘longue durée’, highlights the episodic expression of contested, yet enduring ideas across a long time span, serving to destabilize the temporal dichotomies of Western modernity that essentialize the nature and meaning of ‘pre-modern’ games. The essay outlines the transtemporal history and explores its potential utility by critiquing the notion that basketball was ‘invented’ by a singular subject in the global history of organized ballgames.

Keywords:

• Basketball
• modern sports
• longue durée
• decoloniality
• sport history

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the reviewers for their substantive comments, and David L. Andrews, Tim Chandler, Shannon Jette, Damion Thomas, and the late Ronald Schultz for their invaluable guidance and critique.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.