The Professor in the Cage

Starred review from January 12, 2015
While working as an adjunct English professor Gottschall (The Storytelling Animal) found himself drawn to the mixed–martial arts (MMA) gym across the street from his office, as this fascinating book describes. Having avoided fights for most of his life, and working in a profession that associates masculinity “with everything oafish, bullying and oppressive,” he felt ready to try something new, particularly since he’d long admired but never himself performed acts of “physical courage.” While beginning his training, Gottschall realized that ritualized, rule-bound competitions—what he calls “the monkey dance”—are essential to helping men work out conflicts. With humor, literary allusions, and a casual, unprepossessing style, Gottshall explores such related subjects as duels, bullying, English football, men’s “love-hate” relationship to war, and violent entertainment from gladiator games to MMA. Noting that without a dominant hierarchy, his gym would be a “grisly bloodbath,” he nevertheless finds that his fellow fighters are not at all what he expected. Many are “downright sweet,” and none have gotten into fights outside the cage in years. By the end of Gottschall’s thought-provoking study, he enters his first—and only—official fight after 15 months of training, thinking very differently about masculinity and the rituals of manhood.

June 15, 2015

Gottschall (English, Washington & Jefferson Coll.; The Storytelling Animal) shares his experiences training for and participating in a mixed martial arts (MMA) cage fight. Gottschall envisioned getting a firsthand perspective on fundamental questions about human violence. He wanted to learn why some people choose to fight and why so many other seemingly passive people like to watch the violence. Gottschall briefly summarizes key points in the history of human violence, including the peculiar dandy-dance of dueling, bullying, English football, and violent forms of entertainment from gladiator games to today's professional violent sports. The memoir leads up to the author's first and only official cage fight, which lasted less than one minute. Quincy Dunn-Baker's solid reading holds listener interest in this gripping personal story of why humans purposefully engage in violence. VERDICT This work will appeal to fans of Joyce Carol Oates's On Boxing and Rory Miller's Meditations on Violence. Recommended for psychology and sports collections. ["This title will primarily engage readers of popular sociology titles. While fans of MMA and academic readers may find interest in some aspects of this work, the appeal for these readers will be limited, as Gottschall only scratches the surface of both the MMA world and the science behind male aggression": LJ 3/1/15 review of the Penguin Pr. hc.]--Dale Farris, Groves, TX

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