C. L. R. James and the Aesthetics of Sport

While scholars have long written about the importance cricket played in C. L. R. James’s intellectual development, particularly the ways in which the sport affected his views on race and colonialism, less attention has been paid to James’s aesthetic philosophy of sports, chiefly, his belief that cricket is a form of art as outlined in Beyond a Boundary. This article examines the ways in which James’s social and political beliefs are inextricably connected with his aesthetic appreciation and evaluation of sports through a discussion of Beyond a Boundary as well as his cricket reporting, ultimately showing that by analyzing politics and aesthetics in conjunction, we gain a broader perspective on James’s writings on cricket.