Body projects as a historical phenomenon: Irish physical culture and the body as process

ABSTRACT

As perhaps the most ephemeral historical object, studying the physical body in history is a challenging and complex affair. It is for this reason that many scholars have lamented the ‘invisible body’ in historical research, that is to say the lived, healthy, body which is often discussed but never truly examined. Using the example of physical culture in Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, this article explores the idea of ‘body projects’ as a historical tool. Understood as the interplay between physical form, discourse and technology, the ‘body project’ represented an explicit and repeated effort to demonstrate one’s commitment to exercise. Performed as a means of excavating, at least somewhat, the physical body in history, the article provides a new method of studying the historical body. In the case of physical culture, training texts impacted the body which, in turn, was recreated through photography, measurements and text. This was the ‘body project’ at play. Studying the men involved, and the discourses they used, the article examines ‘body projects’ as a tool of analysis, one which encompasses body, image and text.

KEYWORDS:

• Body
• gender
• exercise
• health
• physical culture
• twentieth century
• Ireland

Acknowledgments

The author would like to extend their thanks to Dr. Broderick Chow and Professor Jan Todd for their comments, suggestions and critiques. Additional thanks to the Irish History Student’s Association, the History of Science, Technology and Medicine Network of Ireland and the Economic and Social History Society of Ireland for allowing earlier iterations of this work to be read during 2017 Conferences.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was generously funded by the Irish Research Council and Universities Ireland. Additional funding was provided by the North American Society for Sport History; Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Notes on contributors

Conor Heffernan

Conor Heffernan is Assistant Professor in Physical Culture and Sport Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He completed his doctoral work on physical culture in Ireland from 1898 to 1939. Past work has examined physical culture products in Ireland, the use of animal history for sporting historians and colonial exercise regimes in India.