13th Czech Philosophy of Sport Conference
The 13th annual Czech Philosophy of Sport Conference took place at the Faculty of Sports Studies of Masaryk University in Brno on 18-19 October 2024. This tradition was founded in 2012 by Jim Parry, Irena Martínková, Ivo Jirásek and Emanuel Hurych. The Czech Philosophy of Sport is associated with the Czech Philosophy of Sport Section of the Czech Kinanthropological Society, which also provides patronage for regular conferences.
Since 2012, they have been held every year without exception (usually in October) and are hosted alternately in Prague (FTVS UK), Olomouc (FTK UP), Brno (FSpS MU) and České Budějovice (TF JU). Lukáš Mareš from České Budějovice has joined the permanent Czech community over time. Since the very beginning, the conferences have been held in English and the number of foreign participants very often exceeds the number of domestic ones. This year there were just under twenty participants (including two presenting online), and in addition to the Czech Republic, the USA, UK, Japan, China, Croatia, Slovenia, Brazil and Belgium were represented.
Members of the scientific committee were Jim Parry, Irena Martínková, Ivo Jirásek, Lukáš Mareš and Emanuel Hurych. Jim Parry was the expert guarantor of the conference and as always took care of the abstract revisions and selection. The organizing committee consisted of Jim Parry, Emanuel Hurych, Jakub Palka and Jiří Kotas (both PhD students at FSpS MU).
As part of a kind of "pre-programme", two invited guests (Matija Škerbič from University Zagreb and Jon Pike from Open University UK) gave lectures for undergraduate students of the home faculty, i.e. FSpS MU. Those interested in both lectures almost filled the extended capacity of the room, which was about thirty people. The topics of the lectures were "Varieties of 'Inclusion' in Sport" (Pike) and "Sport versus Morality" (Škerbič). The lectures were 'tailored' to the Master's students who constituted the dominant part of the audience. The reception from the audience was receptive and there were also interesting discussions on both topics.
The conference itself ran from Friday morning to Saturday afternoon in the large meeting room at FSpS MU. The keynote address was given by Matija Škerbič. The second keynote address took place at the end of the Friday programme and was given by Jon Pike. The final paper of the whole conference, delivered (already on Saturday afternoon) by Lev Kreft (University of Ljubljana) rather symbolically closed the Saturday programme with the topic "Endangered Gender".
The conference on the philosophy of sport in the Czech environment has, from the very beginning, had a not quite usual time arrangement of contributions. Sixty minutes are set aside for a standard paper, with the presentation itself usually taking up a third of this time and the remainder devoted to discussion. This allows for a deeper insight into the subject matter that really befits philosophical perspectives. Again this year, the discussions were rich and lively, sometimes critical and sometimes controversial, but always at a high academic level. There were a total of fourteen papers and they were quite diverse in their topics, ranging from the philosophical grasp of the role of technology in sport, to questions of doping, religious aspects of sport, phenomenology of the body or the issue of categorization of different sports, to various ethical perspectives on sport and movement. A recurring theme (especially in the Saturday programme) was issues related to gender and the inclusion of transgender athletes.
The social evening took place on Friday at the Pivovarská restaurant on Mendlovo Square and was held in a pleasant and informal atmosphere. The participants expressed their satisfaction with the programme and the facilities provided by FSpS MU.
We would like to thank the FSpS management for their support, as well as our colleagues from the External Relations Department, namely Vice-Dean Michal Kumstát for arranging the stay of the invited guests, František Hurt for excellent communication with them and Tereza Kožená for the promotion and photo documentation. Special thanks to Veronika Kubíčková, Jakub Palka and Jiří Kotas for their excellent and versatile service during the conference. For next year, FTK UP in Olomouc will take over the baton and we can look forward to the next meeting on 9-10 October 2025.
