What is play? Why do we play? What can play teach us about our life as social beings? In this critical investigation into the significance of play, Henning Eichberg argues that through play we can ask questions about the world, others and ourselves. Playing a game and asking a question are two forms of human practice that are fundamentally connected. This book presents a practice-based philosophical approach to understanding play that begins with empirical study, drawing on historical, soc...

To understand play, we need a bottom-up phenomenology of play. This phenomenology highlights the paradox that it is the players who play the game, but it is also the game which makes us players. Yet what is it that plays us, when we play? Do we play the game, or does the game play us? These questions concern the relation between the playing subject and play as something larger than the individual – play as craft, play as rhythm, play between normality and otherness, even play as religion, ...

Sport has gained increasing importance for welfare society. In this process, however, the term of ‘sport’ has become less and less clear. Larger parts of what nowadays is called ‘sport for all’ are non-competitive and derived from traditions of gymnastics, dance, festivity, games, outdoor activities, and physical training rather than from classical modern elite sports. This requires new philosophical approaches, as the philosophy of sport, so far, has been dominated by topics of elite spor...

In this eBook exclusive essay, Pulitzer Prize–winning sports journalist George Dohrmann follows a father and son separated by prison bars—but bonded by their pursuit of basketball glory.The dream of playing big-time basketball never came true for Bruce Nelson, so he passed it on to his son Roberto. His every waking moment as a father was devoted to securing Roberto a Division I scholarship. Oftentimes he worried that his son’s lack of competitive fire might put tha...

Heidegger's second magnum opus after Being and Time, laying the groundwork for his later writing, in a translation of "impeccable clarity and readability" (Peter Warnek).Martin Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy, written in the late 1930s and published posthumously in 1989, is now widely viewed as his second magnum opus, after Being and Time. Here, Heidegger lays the groundwork for a new conception of thought and being, rooting them ...

Previously published as part of Higher Education?In this provocative work, the renowned sociologist Andrew Hacker and New York Times writer Claudia Dreifus make an incisive case that American college athletics—which originally came into the campus as an innocent form of recreation—have overtaken academic pursuits, compromised the moral authority of educators, and gobbled up resources that should have gone to their basic missions. In other words, t...

Long after painting, sculpture, photography, and film developed along with their materials - canvas and panel, marble and bronze, and celluloid film - a new generation of art has emerged in which digital, electronic, architectural, and performative materials have offered new forms for creative expression and experience. In much of this new art, the medium - no longer composed of passive materials - now embraces and challenges viewers to work as co-creators of aesthetic experience.S...

Why are sport and exercise important?What can the study of sport and exercise tell us about wider society?Who holds the power in creating contemporary sport and exercise discourses?It is impossible to properly understand the role that sport and exercise play in contemporary society without knowing a little social theory. It is social theory that provides the vocabulary for our study of society, that helps us ask the rig...

The essays in this volume explore the full range of Husserl's work and reveal just how systematic his philosophy is. There are treatments of his most important contributions to phenomenology, intentionality and the philosophy of mind, epistemology, the philosophy of language, ontology, and mathematics. An underlying theme of the volume is a resistance to the idea, current in much intellectual history, of a radical break between 'modern' and 'postmodern' philosophy, with Husserl as the last...

For many Australians, there are two great passions: sport and ‘taking the piss’. This book is about national identity – and especially about Australia’s image as a sporting country. Whether reverent or not, any successful national image has to reflect something about the reality of the country. But it is also influenced by the reasons that people have for encouraging particular images – and by the conflicts between differing views of national identity, and of sport.Buffeted by thes...

Sport Policy in Canada provides the first and most comprehensive analysis of the new Canadian Sport Policy adopted in 2012. In light of this new policy, the authors, top scholars in the field, provide detailed accounts of the most salient sport policies and programs, while also discussing issues and challenges facing policy makers. In Canada and around the world, the last decades have known a sharp increase in state intervention and public funding in pursuit of medals on the international ...

This book explores, from a leisure studies perspective, the central role that leisure has to play in positive psychology, exploring themes such as flow, fulfilment, altruism, well-being, and interpersonal relationships.