CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT & KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS:
Sport and the Environment: Philosophical Dimensions
June 22-25 2011
St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish Nova Scotia CANADA
KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS
“Different Kinds of Perfect: The Pursuit of Excellence in Nature Based Sports"
Leslie Howe, Ph.D., Dept. of Philosophy, University of Saskatchewan
In urban based sports, excellence in performance is normally taken to be a matter of superior performance of a more or less constrained set of physical movements or outcomes of movements. It can be argued, however, that sport excellence is a complex achievement, one that extends beyond the quantifiable alone and that can be assessed not only in terms of results and technical skill. In this paper, I consider the interplay between the technical and the aesthetic in nature sport, how this affects the pursuit of excellence, and how nature-oriented sport, in particular, can contribute to an understanding of environmental aesthetics in terms of active engagement.
Leslie A. Howe is a Professor in the Philosophy Department of the University of Saskatchewan, with academic interests in moral psychology, nineteenth century philosophy, gender and identity theory, and the philosophy of sport. A philosophical background in existentialism, especially Kierkegaard, has made her appreciative of the irony of being a hillwalker and competitive rower while living in a place most noted for its relative lack of either hills or water. Leslie’s interest in philosophy of sport grew out of a combination of philosophical work on self, embodiment, and identity and a long involvement in urban based sports such as hockey, soccer, and rowing, as well as a love of the smaller sort of mountain. Her work in philosophy of sport has concentrated primarily on the importance of sport and play to the development of the self and on the significance of certain kinds of environmental engagement in this process.
“Understanding Nature Through Sport”
Kevin Krein, Ph.D., Dept. of Philosophy & Outdoor Studies, University of Alaska Southeast
Nature sports are those sports in which features of the natural world take on the role that human opponents play in traditional or standard sports. In surfing, for example, athletes must respond to the wave they are riding rather than to a human opponent. If we think that traditional sports offer us ways of understanding ourselves, our opponents, and the ways we relate to each other, it is reasonable to think that nature sports offer us ways of understanding the natural world and our relationship to it. I argue that while nature sports athletes have an intimate understanding of, and relationship with, the natural world, it is often a relationship that has not been meaningfully interpreted or understood. It is my contention that nature sports offer a venue to reconsider what our relationship to the natural world should look like, and that athletes and philosophers should exploit that venue.
Kevin Krein is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Academic Director of Outdoor Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast, where he teaches courses in philosophy, mountaineering, and backcountry skiing. As a person who spends a significant portion of his time either in mountains or thinking about mountains, it is fitting that Kevin would choose to do philosophical work in the philosophy of nature oriented sports. The broad goals of his philosophical work in this area are to understand what draws people to nature sports, how such sports are similar to, and different from, other sports, and what role nature sports play, or should play, in a larger cultural context. Outside of the university setting, he guides on mountains and glaciers in Southeast Alaska and has served as lead guide for film crews from PBS, Discovery Channel, Teton Gravity Research, and the BBC. Specializing in ski mountaineering, he has climbed and skied around the world, skied from the summit of Denali, and completed several first descents.
“Outing the Dream Merchants: Geo-social Costs of Myth-selling the Surf Culture”
Scott Tinley, Ph.D. (ABD), San Diego State University
The intersection(s) of the mythology of surfing and the commercial forces driving the constructed idyllic images are a social and geographic space rife with material and philosophical conflict. Using the commodification of surfing as case study, I address the issues of how sport and its mythologies, when institutionalized, alter the social and geographic space in which they are practiced. Borrowing from Barthes, Baudrillard, Giddens, and Lefebvre, I argue that materially and socially-constructed representations of “perfect surf” are (often through eco-tourism) contributing to cultural and environmental degradation in the South and Eastern Pacific Ocean region. This contested space of neoliberal and neocolonialism exists both in transnational corporate headquarters in Southern California and in small villages through the Mentawi Archipelago. I conclude that for sporting practices in the natural world to sustain themselves without a necessary self-destruction, foundations of cultural meaning in emerging alternative sport forms must recast their essential economic and participatory philosophies.
Scott Tinley, a native Californian, is an accomplished teacher, author, and athlete. He teaches Sports MBA graduate students, undergraduate English students, and Junior Lifeguards. He has authored several books, including “Racing the Sunset,” a personal and in-depth study of Athlete Retirement. Just recently, Scott founded the Institute for Athletes in Retirement and Transition (IART) at San Diego State University and continues to conduct research on the subject. Scott is also a member of the Ironman Hall of Fame, a two-time Ironman World Champion, and has competed professionally in over 400 triathlons. Although professionally retired since 1999, Scott still competes and has found a new passion in paddleboard racing
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