In this paper, we present a Lacanian perspective on football, while notably fathoming its normative dimension. Starting with a defining imperative, the prohibition against ‘handling’ or touching the ball with your hands, diverging football historically from rugby, we will subsequently focus our attention on the role of the foot, the eye (notably the eyes of the audience) and the ‘object a’ (in the context of gender). Against this backdrop, we will address pressing issues such as the troubled position of the (...) referee (as an ‘impossible profession’), the commercialisation of football, and the rising tides of violence, match—fixing and other instances of systemic deviance. As we will argue, football exemplifies modern sport as an arena defined by prohibitions and desire, by inclusion and exclusion, by purity and abuse, culminating in recent challenges involved in gender trouble. Symbolical practices, like modern football, are based on in- and exclusion. Instead of more regulations and dichotomies, we advocate careful attention to the delicate art of handling desire in practice. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the central ontological presupposition in the philosophy of sport is the ‘sport-as-play’ paradigm. In reconstructing its archaeological origins, a normative narrative is...

‘Cause of a Lust for LifeI got a Lust for LifeGot a Lust for LifeOh, a Lust for Life’Iggy Pop, 1977Why this Special Issue on Sport & Psychoanalysis, a still relatively little explored approach in c...

ABSTRACT In this article, we address the aporia(s) of the Olympic discourse produced by the troubled split between sport and politics. To start our argument, we will show that sporting governing bodies continuously insist that they are still on the other side of any kind of politics. Guided by Aristotle, who presented the reciprocity of ethics and politics, we will unveil the fallacy of this discourse. In a short genealogy of the relationship between sport, ethics, and politics, we will highlight (...) the Munich Olympics 1936 and Mexico Olympics 1968, where political engagement of sport was exposed clearly. At the same time, the supposed political neutrality of sport manifested an aristocratic preference for radical right regimes. After that, we will analyse the contemporary relation between sport, ethics, and politics in the light of recent developments, including sport’s ambiguous reaction on the Ukraine war. Further argument will be that sport’s in- and external politics, supported by sport ethics and the inherited mantra of the split between sport and politics, is more than just a hypocrisy. At the start, modern sport claims autonomy of governance to keep away from state domination, yet this very autonomy also freezes sport’s ethical core, forbidding athletes, coaches and others active in sport, to express any political engagement, other than passive acceptance of the regulation by governing sport bodies, as the only politics to be respected without deliberation. In the final part an alternative understanding of the dynamics between politics, the political and sport’s ethical core, will be presented to be included in the philosophy of sport and fully developed in following articles. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, we address the aporia(s) of the Olympic discourse produced by the troubled split between sport and politics. To start our argument, we will show that sporting governing bodies continuously insist that they are still on the other side of any kind of politics. Guided by Aristotle, who presented the reciprocity of ethics and politics, we will unveil the fallacy of this discourse. In a short genealogy of the relationship between sport, ethics, and politics, we will highlight (...) the Munich Olympics 1936 and Mexico Olympics 1968, where political engagement of sport was exposed clearly. At the same time, the supposed political neutrality of sport manifested an aristocratic preference for radical right regimes. After that, we will analyse the contemporary relation between sport, ethics, and politics in the light of recent developments, including sport’s ambiguous reaction on the Ukraine war. Further argument will be that sport’s in- and external politics, supported by sport ethics and the inherited mantra of the split between sport and politics, is more than just a hypocrisy. At the start, modern sport claims autonomy of governance to keep away from state domination, yet this very autonomy also freezes sport’s ethical core, forbidding athletes, coaches and others active in sport, to express any political engagement, other than passive acceptance of the regulation by governing sport bodies, as the only politics to be respected without deliberation. In the final part an alternative understanding of the dynamics between politics, the political and sport’s ethical core, will be presented to be included in the philosophy of sport and fully developed in following articles. (shrink)

In Sport Realism: A Law-Inspired Theory of Sport, Aaron Harper, Associate Professor of Philosophy at West Liberty University, introduces a new realist approach to conceptualize sport. The book is d...