Beauty doesn’t need words. It doesn’t need support or foundation. Perhaps the only true and necessary thing in life is to pay homage to the beautiful things we love, knowing that others will love them too, long after we are gone. This bond that is created between the living and the dead, and those to come, is the root of our society, our culture, our civilization. The history of humanity has been connected for many centuries to the relationship developed with the horse. This relationship allowed us to build the basis of our survival and thrive, creating an alliance with several domesticated animals, among which the horse is the most paradoxical, never losing its autonomy.
A tribute is a celebration. And in this conference, we seek to celebrate the beauty of the horse, its freedom, its strength, kindness, character and all the symbolic attributes and characteristics that we admire in its indomitable spirit. Celebrating the horse and the horse culture means trying to dialogue with all the worlds it inhabits, from the pastures where it still works, to sport, therapy, in a word, to think and research in all its multidimensionality.
The On Horses Conference is a meeting place between knowing and doing. An open space of thought and action, in which the main objective is to establish bridges, focused on the relationship between Philosophy and Sport, but that also aims to open the field of reflection to different areas of knowledge, intending to provide the opportunity to think freely and with the widest possible scope.
In order to establish a transdisciplinary dialogue, with contributions from the entire spectrum of academic knowledge, the submission of proposals on the following topics are particularly encouraged:
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- Sports and Philosophy
- Horses and technology
- Technique and methodology
- Health and Veterinary
- Sports and the horse: Polo, Horse Ball, Dressage, Obstacles, etc
- Aesthetics
- Ethics and animal ethics
- Horses in Art: painture, sculpture, photography, literature, cinema, etc.
- Horses and Human Sciences: Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, History, etc.
- Horses: Politics and History
- The workhorse
- The military horse
- Competition
- Famous elite horse schools: Portuguese, Spanish, French, etc.
- Horse breeds
- Economy and sport
- Unique events: desert marathon horses, bullfight, rodeo, etc.
- Culture and symbol
- Mythologies
- Pedagogy and therapy
- Morphology, biomechanics and movement study
- The world of betting: English case, Arabian case, etc.
- Riders: personal histories and insights
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Publication plan
This is a reminder about the book Constantino Pereira Martins will edit next year based on the papers presented at the conference “On Horses” in Spain in May 2022, and an opportunity for those who couldn’t be present in Spain, and who are interested in the Philosophy of Sports and particularly in horses. The book will be planned in the following phases and structure:
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- It will be a joint venture between the University of Extremadura and Coimbra University;
- it will be just the ebook for the online version;
- the final deadline for submission of the texts will be at the end of March 2023.
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So, if you are interested in contributing to this book, send an abstract to: constantinomar@gmail.com
