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Menampilkan postingan dari Oktober, 2010

Dombrowski's Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals

I am currently working my way through Daniel Dombrowski's recent book, Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals (U Chicago Pr 2009).  I have finished his chapter on Weiss and am now reading the chapter on Huizinga.  His other major chapter discusses Feezell.  I would be interested in hearing what others have to say about the book, either here or off-blog.  thanks. Jim

Should we watch football?

Article in yesterday's NY Times asking that question:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/weekinreview/24sokolove.html An excerpt: There are some who believe that taking physical risks in pursuit of a communal goal — and even watching people take risks — has its benefits. “We learn from dangerous activities,” said W. David Solomon, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame and director of its Center for Ethics and Culture. “In life, there are clearly focused goals, with real threats. The best games mirror that. We don’t need to feel bad about not turning away from a game in which serious injuries occur. There are worse things about me than that I enjoy a game that has violence in it. I don’t celebrate injuries or hope for them to happen. That would be a different issue. That’s moral perversion.” Sean D. Kelly, the chairman of Harvard’s philosophy department, has a book coming out in January, co-authored with the philosopher Hubert Dreyfus of the University of California, Berkeley, that a...

CFP: Football (Soccer) in the Middle East

A call for proposals has gone out for contributions to a special journal issue, and a separate book, on Football (Soccer) in the Middle East. For details, see: http://h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=178323&keyword=middle&keyword=east

Is Cheerleading a Sport?

In an editorial called "Stuff your pompoms. This isn't sport." British columnist Victoria Coren weighs in on the "is cheer leading a sport?' debate. I like a lot what Coren has to say about feminism. When asked if she was a feminist Coren replied "My first, instinctive reply had taken the question to mean: "Do you believe in equal pay, equal rights and social freedom for all?", but, in 2010, that is surely just another way of asking: "Are you normal or a moron?" But I'm less takem by what she has to say about cheerleaders: "They aren't doing sport. They are waggling their arses near boys who are doing sport." I don't think Coren has watched much modern cheerleading. It looks pretty athletic to me. Here's a clip from the Rick Mercer Report on the cheerleadering team from The University of Western Ontario. I'm not weighing in on complicated issues regarding funding and equal access for women's sports bu...