call for papers: The Olympics: Politics and Protest

From: Long, Jonathan A [mailto:J.A.Long@leedsmet.ac.uk]
Sent: 16 November 2007 15:25

Call for Papers

The Olympics: Politics and Protest


The Carnegie Faculty of Sport and Education at Leeds Metropolitan
University invites papers for the above conference, to be held at
Headingley Carnegie Stadium over 17th and 18th July 2008.

The Olympic Games are probably the most popular event in the history of
sport. The TV audiences for both the Summer and the Winter Games now
approach saturation point, the Games generate huge commercial
possibilities for 'Olympic partners' and a deafening cheer goes up in
the nominated country when the venue for the next tournament but one is
revealed. Olympic history - especially the history dispensed by the
International Olympic Committee itself - is invariably a history of
sporting triumph and comradeship. The political dimensions of the
Olympic movement have too often been hidden from its history - hence
this conference.

We invite papers that take a critical stance on the Olympic movement at
some point in its history. These papers may address any of the following
themes:

- de Coubertin and the establishment of the modern Olympics
- campaigns against the Olympics and/or specific Olympiads
- gender and the Olympics and the campaign for gender equity
- racism and the Olympics
- the campaign to establish, and issues around, the Paralympics
- the amateur-professional divide
- commercialism and the Olympics
- Olympics and the Cold War
- the Olympics as a site of protest
- the Olympics and 'human rights'
- the Olympics and the environment
- critiques of Olympic ideology and educational programmes

Needless to say, papers outside of these specified themes will be
considered.





Keynote Speakers:

Professor Helen Lenskyj (University of Toronto) author of Inside the
Olympic Industry(State University of New York Press, 2000).

John Horne, Reader in the Sociology of Sport, University of Edinburgh


Please direct outline of your proposed paper (300 words approx.), and
any academic enquires, to conference organiser:

Stephen Wagg, Reader in Sport and Society, Leeds Metropolitan
University: S.Wagg@leedsmet.ac.uk