CULTURE, COVID, CONTROVERSY: TOKYO 2021 & BEIJING 2022
An Olympic Symposium
Wednesday, May 5, 2021 at 7pm
Presentations by MIT undergraduate students of 21M.848 and guest speaker Dr. Susan Brownell
Register for free tickets: https://mta.mit.edu/olympics (information, guest speaker and student photos/bios, registration link)
There have been only eight Olympics located in Asia in the 126-year history of the Games, two of them occurring in the next year. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics being held in 2021 due to COVID-19 is the first time the Games have ever been postponed. Next February, Beijing will become the first city to ever host both a Summer and Winter Games.
This symposium offers a closer look at Tokyo and Beijing’s sport cultures and Olympic histories, their path to the upcoming Games, and the challenges and controversies surrounding them—and provides helpful history, cultural context, current events, and fun facts leading up to the the grandest spectacle on earth viewed by more than three billion people worldwide.
Please join the students of 21M.848 (Performance Studies: Advanced Theories of Sport) for two panels of their individual presentations and group Q&A, along with our special guest Dr. Susan Brownell, who will deliver a talk about the connections between the Olympics, NGOs, and human rights.