CFP: Sport and the Environment: Philosophical Dimensions

Sport and the Environment: Philosophical Dimensions

Call for Abstracts

We invite the submission of abstracts to be considered for presentation at the Sport and the Environment: Philosophical Dimensions conference. The conference will be held at St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, between June 23 and June 25th, 2011. Antigonish is a beautiful, historic, university town situated in the 'Highland Heart of Nova Scotia' and serves as the primary cultural, retail and service centre for this area. The town is located in Antigonish County, which is a rural community steeped in a unique heritage of Acadian French, Scottish, Irish, African and Dutch settlers. Prior to the arrival of European and African settlers, the Mi’kmaq First Nation occupied this territory and had been living in this area for many centuries.

Abstracts are welcome on any area of environment and sport and physical activity, including education, history, sociology, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics and ethics, and from any theoretical approach. Papers focusing on the various environmental forces in sport and physical activity are encouraged. In addition to abstracts for papers, proposals for round table and panel discussions, including a tentative list of participants, are also welcome and should follow the same format as paper abstracts. Graduate students and emerging scholars are encouraged to participate and may submit works in progress.
Environmental forces in sport and physical activity have revolutionized our sporting participation. These events invite philosophical discussion and analysis of the ethical dimensions of environment and sport and, also, of their broader implications for the conception of sport itself. Some questions that should be asked include: What role does environment play in sport, and what role ought it to play? Which responsibilities do sport governing bodies have over the impact of sport on the environment? Ought we be concerned about our environmental footprint in sport and physical activity? To what degree--if at all--ought the IOC to regulate the impact of Olympic sports on the environment? Should sports which negatively impact the environment be changed or even eliminated? Who ought to determine appropriate impacts of sport on the environment? How ought "the environment” to be defined in terms of sport and physical activity? What is the morally appropriate role played by animals in the context of sport and the environment? The conference aims to open philosophical dialogue on these and other topics related to environment and sport and physical activity.
Abstracts for presentations, and panel discussions should be 300-500 words long and must be received by January 17th, 2011. The preferred mode of submission is by e-mail. Please send the abstract as an attachment, preferably in Word. Contributors, who do not have access to e-mail, should feel free to send a hard copy.

Please submit e-mail copies of abstracts to Conference Organizers, Charlene Weaving and Gabriela Tymowski, at:
cweaving@stfx.ca
tymowski@unb.ca

Please send hard copies (only if e-mail is not available) to:

Dr. Charlene Weaving
Human Kinetics Dept.
St. Francis Xavier University
PO BOX 5000
Antigonish Nova Scotia, Canada
B2G 2W5
902.867.2260
F: 902.867.3904
www.stfx.ca

*Abstracts will be reviewed by the Conference Organizing Committee. Contributors will be notified about the status of their abstracts by February 15th, 2011