Fall, 2001
Editor’s Note: Because of the tragic events of September 11 and the declaration of war by the US President, George W. Bush, the Executive Council of IAPS was uable to meet during the Fall 2001 meeting at Williamsburg. The Executive Council did its work through electronic communication. This newsletter is extended and attempts to fill inform its members of IAPS news from that meeting and for our upcoming meeting in 2002.
Please note the following:
Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to report that our 2001 meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia, was a great success. I am grateful to the other members of the program committee—Sheryle Dixon, Scott Kretchmar, and John Russell—for their careful, insightful comments on submitted abstracts and to John Charles for being a highly efficient and gracious site coordinator. Most of all, I thank the participants in the conference for creating a collegial and stimulating environment. The level of discussion at the sessions I attended was outstanding, including, much to my chagrin, at the session in which I presented my own paper, to which audience members raised several cogent objections! I am also told that Williamsburg was a charming venue for our meeting though, what with holding four different business meetings and chasing our two-year-old daughter around the conference site, I managed to see very little of it!
While we lost several strong papers due to September 11-related withdrawals, we still had an excellent program of 27 papers. It was wonderful to renew friendships with IAPS veterans and very encouraging to see several new faces. We have every reason to look forward to an even better meeting next year at Penn State, with the return of those members whom we missed this year. You’ll find the call for papers for the Penn State meeting in this newsletter, and I urge you all to submit abstracts and encourage your colleagues to do so. Having visited Penn State a year and a half ago, I can vouch for its attractiveness as an IAPS meeting site: a beautiful, historic campus, a lively, pedestrian-friendly college town, and a scenic setting surrounded by the Pennsylvania hills.
Thanks are due to our outgoing IAPS officers. Angela Schneider has been a model of professionalism in her three years’ fine service as president-elect, president and past president. A perfect illustration was Angela’s stoic and good-humored running of the business meetings and delivery of her presidential address at the 2000 meeting in Melbourne, despite having been separated from her luggage en route from Canada! And Sheryle Dixon and John Russell have gone well beyond the call of duty in their conscientious service as members-at-large.
I look forward to an excellent year for IAPS. Our annual meetings are the lifeblood of our organization and things bode very well for next year’s conference. We received a record 47 submissions for the 2001 meeting and we can realistically expect even more submissions for the 2002 conference, by which time concerns about terrorism will very likely have subsided. Our journal, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, has successfully made the transition to a twice-a-year publication. Paralleling the appearance of new faces at our Williamsburg meeting, the publication of articles by new authors in recent issues of JPS is another encouraging sign of the health of our organization.
We can all play our role in supporting IAPS by promptly renewing our membership dues for 2001-2 and also by encouraging our professional colleagues and acquaintances to join. Please see the membership information in this newsletter.
Sincerely,
Nick Dixon, IAPS president, 2001-02
Dear Colleagues,
This is my last letter as President. I have only just been able to complete our annual cycle of business due to our inability to hold an Executive meeting at Williamsburg, owing to the extraordinary events of recent times. I would like to begin by thanking on your behalf John Charles (Site Convenor) and Nic Dixon (Program Chair) and all their helpers for carrying through such a successful conference under very difficult circumstances. We are indebted to you. We are also in debt to members of the Executive whose terms of office expire now; Angela Schneider (Past President) and John Russell (Members at Large) for their good service to our Association. My main task in the coming year as Past President is to organize the election process and to secure nominations for key offices such as President and Members at large. I welcome your suggestions and nominations in this regard.
With respect to some of the outcomes of the Executive meeting – which has been held electronically since the conference – there are some key outcomes I would like to share with you. The Executive has sought to recommend an extension to the term of office of Presidency in keeping with other Associations beyond one year so that the President can carry through her/his role more effectively. A year is a short time to get on top of the tasks required by the Association and the proposal to extend it to two has the full backing of the Executive. In keeping with our Constitution, we will inaugurate a proper vote from the Membership. Nic Dixon has kindly agreed to move this process on – so please note this important item along with others Nic will raise later on in this issue that require your prompt input. Although the full minutes of the meeting will appear in the next newsletter, I should like to draw your attention to some key points now.
First, we have agreed to extend Graduate support to student members of good standing who wish to attend our annual conferences. Those who have papers accepted can expect to have their registration fee paid and those who wish merely to attend will have half their registration paid. Student members should note that Alun Hardman (ahardman@chelt.ac.uk) is the Secretary/Treasurer who will deal with these matters.
Second, I am also really pleased to announce that Andy Miah has been invited to work on a new homepage for IAPS and to develop an independent site. Andy and Simon Easson set up an original site at De Montfort University, where Andy was a Doctoral student, but he has since moved on and though we had also used a site at University of Idaho with good effect with Sharon Stoll’s kind help, the Executive felt it time to secure an independent site to promote the work of the Association and to assist, among other things in scholarly exchange, member communications, and indeed a membership drive by displaying the rigour and robust health of the Association. Our thanks to Sharon and to Simon for their valued efforts in the past, and our renewed thanks to Andy for taking on this vital role. Should you wish to contact Andy his current email is andymiah@hotmail.com . As soon as the web page is up and running you will see our “new” logo which was first trialled at Bedford IAPS 1999 meeting and advertised earlier this year in the newsletter and ratified by the executive .
In respect of conferences, I am pleased to say that we have secured sites for the next two years of conferences. Pennsylvania State University will host IAPS 2002, and the University of Gloucestershire (formerly Cheltenham and Gloucester College – the institution which Alun Hardman and myself work in) will host IAPS 2003. During 2003 there will be the chance for Philosophers of Sport to present their research at the World Congress of Philosophy in Turkey. You will soon see further advice concerning this conference from Heather Reid who will liaise with the organising committee. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to host IAPS 2004 in Athens at the Pre-Olympic Congress as we had hoped; the conference is already too large and complex. We had hoped to do this partly in order to secure a rolling program well in advance to help members plan ahead. If, however, you are keen to support a conference in 2004 or 2005 at your institution please don’t wait too long before notifying the Executive. We are planning to keep ahead of ourselves and getting the rolling program working well in advance of the actual meetings will be crucial.
As if there was not enough conference venues for us to ply our trade, there are two further conferences to which I would wish to draw your attention. Would members who have already been notified of these before, please accept my apologies for the “cross-posting”. If Members know of further conferences in sports or in philosophy where our work can be presented, they should contact Sharon Stoll (Newsletter Editor) at sstoll@uidaho.edu and Andy Miah as webmaster so that we can distribute relevant details. In Greece, at the University of Thessaloniki, philosophers may make submission to present work at the European Congress of Sports Sciences (which is neither exclusively European nor exclusively “scientific” where this refers in Anglo-US talk as only experimental research) in July 2002. Please go to the ECSS web page at www.phed.uoa.gr/ecss2002 for further details. For those of you who have a desire to visit Brazil in June 2002 there is also the first ever dedicated philosophy of sports conference held in South America organised by Prof. Joao Moderno and Prof. Manuel Tubino in Rio de Janeiro. Please contact cifilesp@uerj.br for further details. Finally, we have been invited to make submission to the Pre Olympic Scientific Congress 2004 to make presentations under various formats (workshops, colloquia, symposia) and further details will be forthcoming from our new President Prof. Nic Dixon to whom I extend my warmest good wishes for the coming year.
Finally, my thanks and good wishes to you all. I hope to see you in one or all of the conferences above and certainly at Penn State next year.
Mike McNamee,
December 2001 (mmcnamee@chelt.ac.uk)
The
International Association for the Philosophy of Sport invites the submission of
abstracts to be considered for presentation at the 2002 IAPS meeting. It will take place at the Pennsylvania State
University, USA, from Thursday, October 24 to Sunday, October 27. More details
about the conference will follow in upcoming newsletters.
Abstracts
are welcome on any area of philosophy of sport, including metaphysics,
epistemology, aesthetics and ethics, and from any theoretical approach,
including analytic philosophy and critical theory. 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.
Abstracts
should be 300-500 words long and must be received by April 20, 2002. The preferred mode of submission is by
e-mail. Please send your abstract as an
attachment, preferably in Word or Word Perfect. Contributors who do not have access to e-mail should feel free to
send a hard copy instead.
Please
submit e-mail copies of abstracts to sigmund.loland@nih.no
Please
send hard copies (only if e-mail is not available) to:
Sigmund
Loland
NIH,
P.O. Box 4014, Ullevål Stadion
0806
Oslo
Norway
Abstracts
will be reviewed by a program committee of three peers in IAPS. Contributors will be notified about the
acceptance or rejection of their abstracts by May 31, 2002.
Sigmund Loland professor of sport philosophy and theory of sport science at Norwegian University for Sport and Physical Education (NUSPE) has been elected president-elect for IAPS in a three-year term. We are excited to have Sigmund on board and look forward to his leadership in the coming years. Sigmund brings a rich tradition of scholarship to the office. You may contact Sigmund at: Sigmund.Loland@nih.no
Members at Large: Dennis Hemphill and William Morgan were elected as members at large for a two year term. Dr Dennis Hemphill is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Human Movement, Recreation and Performance at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. He has been a long-time member of PSSS/IAPS, contributing both to JPS and the PSSS Newsletter, acting as a Member-at-Large during 1995-96 and as site coordinator for the IAPS conference in Melbourne in 2000. You may contact him via email at: hemda@cougar.vut.edu.au
William J. Morgan, Ph.D. is a professor of cultural studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Morgan has served as editor and has published extensively in the Journal of Philosophy of Sport. Morgan is former president of the International Association of the Philosophy of Sport and in 1995, received the association's Distinguished Scholar Award. You may contact Bill at: wmorgan1@utk.edu.
IAPS is fortunate to have two such capable members serving on the board.
From the Newsletter Editor: To Sigmund, Dennis and Bill:
Congratulations and thanks for agreeing to give of your precious time to
IAPS.
Also Thanks to our leaving board members: Angela Schneider for being easy to work with,
John Russell and Sheryl Dixon for helping IAPS move forward. Hope you run again for office…
See posted minutes (October, 01) at the following web site: http://www.its.uidaho.edu/iaps
In order to save both IAPS and the editor's resources,
As well as giving members faster access, future issues of this newsletter will normally be available only on the IAPS newsletter web site at http://www.its.uidaho.edu/iaps Members who lack internet access should contact me by e-mail (sstoll@uidaho.edu) or regular mail S. Stoll, 500 Memorial Gymnasium, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-2429 to request that hard copies of subsequent newsletters be mailed to them.
Directions to access
the IAPS newsletter via website:
1). Log onto www.its.uidaho.edu/iaps
2). Click on the newsletter link
3). Read on from there and enjoy!
During this past year, a number of you have experienced problems receiving your Journal issues and Newlsetters in a timely manner, or at all. Many apologies if you have been adversely affected and frustrated. This past year has not only involved me taking over as the Secretary/Treasurer, but it is also the first time that the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport has moved to a biannunal publishing schedule. The impact of these events have meant business has not run as smoothly as I had hoped.
Our position with Human Kinetics, the Journal's publishers, has been clarified and all persons who paid their membership dues during 2000-01 will be receiving their Journal issues within the next two weeks or so. For those of you who have not paid membership for 2000-01, I urge you to do so as soon as possible in order for you to receive this year's Journal publications. For those of you who have any doubts about your membership status, or
have not received a Journal issue to which they thought they were entitled, please contact me as soon as possible. I have already asked Human Kinetics
to act on a number of issues, but would prefer to have them deal with any other problems all at once.
With our new biannual publishing schedule, it is important for you to know some of the details about our agreement with Human Kinetics. This information will allow you to schedule your payments in a timely manner in order to receive both issue of the journal as soon as is possible.
HK require appropriate payment when we send them a membership list and mailing addresses for the journal. This is opposed to previous practice where they billed us after they received the list.
This means that six weeks before the first of the two yearly issues goes out HK will ask me to submit a list of current members along with 50% payment.
Should additional members join in between the first and second issue, I will send us their names along with 50% payment for HK to send them the first
issue. As the first issue of the journal goes out in mid April, memberships will need to be paid six weeks before then.
Alun Hardman, Secretary Treasurer
Remember to update your membership. Keep current. Standard membership is $36, US currency . For a membership form go to: http: //www.dmu.ac.uk/dept/schools/pesl/affiliat/iapsform.htm Or http://www.its.uidaho.edu/iaps
If you are a current member of IAPS, you should now have Volume 28, Issue #2 in your possession. This completes the Journal's first year of semi-annual publication. The Board reaffirmed its commitment to this more aggressive publication schedule. It appears that a sufficient number of high quality submissions are coming in to support two issues annually without any sacrifice in quality. Only a few spots remain for Volume 29, Issue #1. Articles should be sent
to me at Penn State as soon as possible. Because part of Issue #2 is devoted to the theme of Epistemology and Movement (guest edited by Maxine Sheets Johnsone), a smaller number of spots will be available in that issue. Thus, now is the time to submit your articles. I will be continuing on as editor through my term this year (to October, 2002). Nick Dixon will be taking on a greater role this year as Associate Editor, but articles should still be mailed to me at Penn State., % 101A White Bldg, University Park, PA. USA 16802 +1 814 863 4492 (Note: Nick's name appears erroneously in Vol 28, Issue #2, as editor.) I look forward to receiving submissions from you and, as always, welcome comments for the good of the Journal.
Scott Kretchmar, Editor
submitted by Simon Eassom
Senior colleagues in the Association will be saddened to hear of the sudden and unexpected death of Bob Paddick. He was diagnosed with a brain tumour
last spring, underwent an operation on July 12th but tragically did not recover. Bob was an otherwise healthy, vigorous, and active 62-year-old.
Bob was Australian born from Victor Habour, Adelaide. He attended Adelaide University and graduated with a BA honours degree in 1961, specialising in Physical Education and Comparative Philosophy. He was one of the early cohorts of Ozzies and Brits to venture to North America for post-graduate opportunities in the study of sport. He completed his MA in Physical Education at the University of Alberta in 1968. But unlike other
Colonials he returned to Australia, to Adelaide, and took up a post in 1972 at Flinders University (where he remained throughout his career). At the time
of his death last July he was a senior lecturer and coordinator of the School of Physical Education at Flinders. Bob also undertook a second MA whilst back in Australia, in the philosophy department at Adelaide University. However, in the later years of his career he wrote and studied mostly in sport history and was an active member of the Australian Society for Sports History. His main area of interest was Olympism and he was a passionate believer in and advocate of the philosophical ideals of the olympic movement. He visited and lectured at
the International Olympic Academy in Greece and was a co-founder of the Australian Olympic Academy. One of the highlights of his life was being
chosen to be a torch-bearer as part of the relay procession leading up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Bob was an active sportsman. He enjoyed
regular games of golf and tennis, had run a marathon and taken part in long-distance rowing events. He loved teaching and was loved by his students and
colleagues. He excelled at making people think more clearly about issues and managed to provoke their curiosity in a gentle and non-confrontational way
that earnt him the respect of all who worked and studied with him. I first came across Bob's work as an undergraduate student in England. He contributed to the Association in its early days with some conceptual work on "What Makes Physical Activity Physical?" (JPS, 1975) and with a review of
Bernard Suit's "The Grasshopper" (JPS, 1979). When I went to the University of Alberta as an MA student in 1981 he was still fondly remembered by the staff and I would occasionally pull down from the shelf in the Department library his MA dissertation on epistemology and Physical Education. There was a feeling of connection between us as the only two sport philosophers through the programme at Alberta up until that time. I was fortunate enough to meet Bob many years later and talk about Alberta, sport philosophy, and Olympism. He kindly and graciously read some of my work that I was producing for my PhD and humbly disqualified himself from being expert enough to pass judgement. What little I knew of him and for the short time that our paths crossed I knew I liked him. I regret not being able to persuade him to get involved again with the Association. Bob's written contribution to the philosophy of sport has had less impact on the Association than his talents and abilities offered, but there is no doubt that as one of the early adventurers who chose a less-trodden path to follow he paved the way in making sport philosophy a respectable subject at Alberta and back home in Australia. The acceptance of me as a philosopher on the Phys Ed MA programme at Alberta was made possible by the regular reference to Bob: "Bob Paddick was a philosopher . . . and he was one of our best students".
He will be sorely missed by all who knew him.
Simon Eassom
To be voted on by all IAPS members present at the business
meeting (annual general meeting) at the 2002 IAPS conference at Penn State in
October 2002.
The idea of a two year
presidency for IAPS has been floated a few times recently. The main reason behind it is very
convincing: by the time you’ve learned the ropes of various presidential
duties, the year is up and you don’t have the chance to take advantage of your
newly-acquired experience. The main
downside to this idea is that, with our current structure of presidents-elect
and past presidents, a two year presidency would require a six year commitment
to some significant IAPS administrative duties. Many fine potential candidates would be deterred from running for
president by this burden. This proposal
is designed to preserve the advantage of a two year presidency while avoiding
this pitfall.
I suggest that we
abolish the positions of president-elect and past president. Instead, their duties—primarily organizing
the annual conference and annual elections, respectively—can be transferred to
two new two year executive positions: Conference Chair and Elections
Chair. Thus the person becoming
president would be making only a two year commitment to IAPS service, with no
president-elect or past president duties.
The very same benefits
of a two year presidency—familiarity and greater ease with the relevant
duties--would also apply to the new roles of conference chair and elections
chair. I can attest that, having just
completed my term as president-elect (conference chair), I would find it a
breeze to do it a second time.
It’s true that the
structure of past presidents and presidents elect adds continuity to the exec.,
but I would expect the same kind of continuity to exist under my proposal. That is, the typical route to the presidency
will be spending at least one two year term as a member at large, conference
chair, elections chair, or some other executive position.
We would only need to
hold elections for president, conference chair, and elections chair every two
years. To provide continuity on the
exec., it would make sense to hold elections for members-at-large during off-years.
If approved by IAPS
members in the way prescribed for constitutional changes, the two-year
presidency and the new offices of conference chair and elections chair will
take effect in 2003. Here is the
chronology of events that will be necessary for ratification.
1. All
IAPS members must be notified of the proposed change at least one month before
the 2002 meeting at Penn State. This
announcement in the newsletter is well in advance of the requirement of one
month’s notice.
2. At
the annual general meeting at Penn State, a vote will be taken on the
proposal. A 2/3 majority will be
required in favor of the change before proceeding to the next step.
3. After
the meeting (perhaps in the fall 2002 newsletter), mail ballots will be
distributed to all IAPS members. A 2/3
majority will be necessary to pass the
constitutional change.
4. If
the proposal is passed, the elections held in summer/fall 2003 will include
nominees for conference chair and elections chair, but not for the discontinued
position of president-elect. The
president (who will have served as president-elect under the old system in
2002-3), conference chair and elections chair will begin their two year terms
in fall 2003 after the annual meeting.
Aside from strict
obedience to the constitution, a further advantage of waiting until 2003 to
enact the change is complete transparency.
Sigmund Loland will serve the one year term of presidency for which he
was elected, in addition to his current term as president-elect. And both voters in and candidates for the
2002 election for president-elect will be aware that, if the change is
approved, the winner will go on to be the first two year president in 2003-5.
I propose that, starting
in 2003, the following changes be made to the structure of the IAPS executive
offices:
1. That
the presidency be extended to a two-year term.
2. That
the offices of president-elect and past president be discontinued.
3. That
the duties of these discontinued offices be taken over by the new executive
offices of conference chair and elections chair, respectively, each of which
will be a two-year elected term.
4. That
all the relevant sections of the IAPS constitution be amended to reflect the
creation of these two new executive positions.
Proposed by
Nicholas Dixon
IAPS President
Endorsed by
IAPS Executive
Hot Off the Press, Now Available! : Karin A. E. Volkwein-Caplan and Gopal Sankaran introduce their new book, Sexual Harassment in Sport: Impact, Issues and Challenges, to the world of sport philosophy. Sexual Harassment in Sport provides an overview of behaviors and how sexual harassment impacts the world of sport and, specifically, its participants
New from Routledge: 'Fair Play in Sport. A Moral Norm
System' by Sigmund Loland, professor at the Norwegian University of Sport
and Physical Education, represents a critical re-working of the classic ideal
of fair play and explores its practical consequences for current competitive
sport. By linking general moral principles and practical cases, the book
develops a contemporary theory of fair play.
Philosophy of Sport: Critical Readings, Crucial Issues. M. Andrew Holowchak. Prentice Hall.
This user friendly collection of essays on topical issues in philosophy of sport draws principally from philosophy. The anthology contains 44 essays on diverse and contempoary issues in sport from different perspectives.
Those interested in the triennial ICSSPE publication must sign up with ICSSPE. A specific form is necessary for this process. The objective of the bulletin is “to provide a medium for members to share information and discuss, in a multi-disciplinary forum, selected topical issues. See: http://www.icsspe.org/
Karin Volkwein-Caplan,
IAPS Representative to icsspe
PhilSport-Online http://www.dmu.ac.uk/ln/philsport
Recent alterations to the website that currently hosts IAPS
pages has made some alterations to its links page, though will greatly benefit
from new link contributions from existing members. One of its recent aims has
been to provide a more comprehensive outline of those universities where some
teaching in philosophy of sport takes place, to give a more representative
picture of the discipline. With many
more members attending the annual