International Transcultura Conference:
"Playing by the Rules of the Game - Jouer selon les règles du jeu"

10 - 14 July 2006, Merzig (Germany)

The transcultural keywords "game" and "rules of the game"

Germany is hosting the world football series this year from 9th June to 9th July. Following this sporting event the topic of sports rules will be discussed in the newly-established International Transcultura Centre, Europe (ITC-E) in Merzig from 10th to 14th July 2006.

Since the beginning of 2006 the Transcultura project has been coordinated by Saarland University, under the direction of Prof. Dr. Martina Ghosh-Shellhorn, who holds the professorship for New Anglophone Cultures, and supported by the European Union. The main objective is to establish a Transcultura Observatory which is to become a place of cultural meeting and scientific exchange. This symposium, "Playing by the rules of the game - Jouer selon les règles du jeu", will provide an opportunity to realise the goals set for the Transcultura project.

"Playing by the rules of the game" appears to be a universal concept, yet in practice it is understood less than homogenously. When is a rule valid, and under which conditions? This is a question that might well be answered differently in different cultures. In many respects the field of sports is a microcosm, an ordered and orderly miniature universe, in the macrocosm or overall universe formed by the real world. The microcosm offers interesting parallels to and contrasts with other areas of the macrocosm. In a game, for those ninety minutes, those several hours, that single day, or even the open endings of some games, sports rules have absolute authority. The first blow of the umpire's whistle is tantamount to the beginning of an alternative world order, truncated from the concerns of the real world, with its serious demands on the spectators' emotions and energies.

And yet, as coverage of sports constantly demonstrates, the world of sports is a true alternative to the real one - while at the same time being part of it. Here, in contrast to real-life conditions, the participants usually start off with equal opportunities, but as in real life, the goal is achievement. Only in this particular case, achievement has been predefined as a rule-determined victory over one's sporting opponents. The emotions brought to and engendered by a game are in no manner inferior to those experienced outside the arena, the local gym or on marked fields outdoors: the tears streaking the faces of the defeated team have not been painted on them.

The most violent of emotions is, perhaps, directed against what is collectively regarded as a breach of rules. Enragement against a seemingly biased referee is proof of this assumption. Sometimes even public security is endangered.

If the rules of security, rather than uncluttered pleasure in sports, are rapidly becoming one of the chief concerns of organisers of these events and of spectators, too, then another is that of consumerism. The marketing of sports, especially of its main players - and the rules devolving from this, whether in the doping controls or the use of the players' bodies as advertising space, is one which reflects back to a culture those positive role models and self-images it has been or will be very soon be subscribing to itself. Relatedly, the way in which sports is presented in the media is, moreover, culturally determined, insofar as the language of sports reporting is adopted for use in other language contexts, thus influencing language change. Analogously, it is to sports that we must turn when tracing the origins of terms which have become part of a culture's stock of commonplace sayings. The ideas of 'fair play', of 'time-keeping', of 'fouling', for example, now tend to inform a culture's attitude towards rules - not only in the sports area from which they derive.

When talking about rules of a game legal aspects are inevitably involved. The legal historian Kantorowicz has proposed the idea that the rules of the golf club of St. Andrews are - in the true sense of the word - rules of law. Institutions like courts of sport in a way demonstrate that rules of sport are "legally embedded". And it might well be that the notion of "fairness" is a central legal concept, too. The conference is not only about cultural traditions in sports and games, but about the reciprocal observation of the following topics: the legal aspects of rules of the game, concepts of games in contrast with competitive sports and competition, concepts of fairness in different cultures, ethic questions of sports, game theory and philosophical aspects of language games.

The symposium is open to the public, to university students and also to school pupils upon registration. It will provide an opportunity to learn and discuss the key words in a transcultural way, allowing communication and knowledge-sharing among people of different languages and cultures.

Conference convenors:

Prof. Dr. Martina Ghosh-Schellhorn
Phone: +49 681 302-2323
Fax: +49 681 302-6586

Prof. Dr. Maximilian Herberger
Dr. Tinka Reichmann
Phone: +49 681 302-2839
Fax: +49 681 302-4469
Email: transcultura AT jura.uni-sb.de

Saarland University / Université de la Sarre
Campus Saarbruecken
66123 Saarbruecken
Germany