Life as competition

Sports is currently a mass phenomenon that mobilizes enormous economic resources and causes heated discussions in streets and cafes.

Under these debates a crossing of worldviews is often hidden. Not in vain the great sports heroes, and milestones are often ammunition for political propaganda, territorial identity ("war by other means") and even glorifying ideologies sustaining health, competition and winning of the best .

It is not surprising that this manifestation of popular culture arouse the interest of writers and artists, from the olympic odes by Pindar, the poems by Rilke Eluard and Cendrars, or  Marinetti's manifestos, to the the musical pieces by Satie or Debussy.

Program

12:00 | Lecture: Santiago Segurola

One of the most prestigious sports journalists in Spain and regular contributor to prime time radio talk shows. He was editor of the sports and culture sections in the nationwide journal El País. He later joined the sports journal Marca as deputy director. He has just published a collection of his best reports in the book "Héroes de nuestro tiempo" (Debate, 2012).

12:30 | Lecture: Manuel Rivas

Writer, poet, essayist and journalist, he is a central figure in contemporary Galician literature. A prolific author, his work has been adapted to the cinema and translated into twenty languages. Throughout his career he has received numerous awards, among them the Torrente Ballester Award, the National Narrative, three Spanish Critics Awards and two Awards of the Critique of Galicia, as well as the appointment as Honorary Doctorate at the UdC. Since 2009 he is a member of the Real Academia Galega.

13:15 | Audiovisual Screening

Collage made by the Centro Galego de Artes da Imaxe for this cycle from a collection of historical images related to sport in Galicia. Football, drifters and social prints drawn from the NO-DO and other documentary sources between the 20s 'and 60s' of the last century.

 
Literature & Thought
 
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