|
May 8, 2007
 |
| Dr. Heather Reid at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. |
Dr. Heather Reid, associate professor and chair of philosophy at Morningside College, is one of only 16 scholars world wide invited to participate in the first event of a comparative study of Greek and Chinese athletic traditions, from ancient times to today, in honor of the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
The study “From Athens to Beijing: West meets East in the Olympic Games” includes one public event and three scholarly conferences held in St. Louis, Mo.; Beijing, China; and Olympia, Greece. The conferences are designed to provide a comparative analysis between the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and provide understanding on how to implement multiculturalism in the future Olympic movement.
Reid’s paper “Contests of Unity: Ancient Olympic Games and the Shared Search for Truth” was presented at the first conference in St. Louis in April, and will be included in the study. The paper compares the emergence and functions of philosophy and the Olympic Games in pre-classical Greece.
Two academic publications, each in English and Chinese, will be produced following the conferences, with summaries of the publications distributed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), and Olympic journalists. Results of the conferences will also be distributed widely through the media and the World Wide Web.
Funding for the project is provided by Costamare Shipping Company S.A. in Athens, Greece, and the Center for International Studies, the Department of Anthropology, and the Hellenic Government-Karakas Foundation Endowed Professorship in Greek Studies, all based at the University of Missouri in St. Louis.
Reid has received international recognition for her expertise on the philosophical foundations of the Olympic Games and is the author of The Philosophical Athlete, published in 2002 by Carolina Academic Press, Durham, N.C. She currently serves as president of the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport (IAPS) and is at work on a book about philosophy and athletics in the ancient world.
Reid joined the faculty at Morningside in 1996. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
|
