Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 458 views

    Intro History of The Body, Willemijn Ruberg.

    Uploaded by

    Mond
    This document provides an overview of the rise of the history of the body as a field of study in the 1980s and 1990s. It discusses how historians began writing about topics like sexuality, pain, and beauty rather than just political events. The cultural turn and linguistic turn influenced historians to examine how meaning and the body were culturally and discursively constructed. The document outlines some of the key debates in studying the body historically, such as whether to focus on representations or lived experiences. It also summarizes some of the major theoretical approaches covered in the textbook, including phenomenology, Foucault's work on sexuality, theories of habitus, psychoanalysis, and new materialism.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Intro History of The Body, Willemijn Ruberg.

    Uploaded by

    Mond
    458 views6 pages
    This document provides an overview of the rise of the history of the body as a field of study in the 1980s and 1990s. It discusses how historians began writing about topics like sexuality, pain, and beauty rather than just political events. The cultural turn and linguistic turn influenced historians to examine how meaning and the body were culturally and discursively constructed. The document outlines some of the key debates in studying the body historically, such as whether to focus on representations or lived experiences. It also summarizes some of the major theoretical approaches covered in the textbook, including phenomenology, Foucault's work on sexuality, theories of habitus, psychoanalysis, and new materialism.

    Original Title

    intro History of the body, Willemijn Ruberg.

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This document provides an overview of the rise of the history of the body as a field of study in the 1980s and 1990s. It discusses how historians began writing about topics like sexuality, pain, and beauty rather than just political events. The cultural turn and linguistic turn influenced historians to examine how meaning and the body were culturally and discursively constructed. The document outlines some of the key debates in studying the body historically, such as whether to focus on representations or lived experiences. It also summarizes some of the major theoretical approaches covered in the textbook, including phenomenology, Foucault's work on sexuality, theories of habitus, psychoanalysis, and new materialism.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    458 views6 pages

    Intro History of The Body, Willemijn Ruberg.

    Uploaded by

    Mond
    This document provides an overview of the rise of the history of the body as a field of study in the 1980s and 1990s. It discusses how historians began writing about topics like sexuality, pain, and beauty rather than just political events. The cultural turn and linguistic turn influenced historians to examine how meaning and the body were culturally and discursively constructed. The document outlines some of the key debates in studying the body historically, such as whether to focus on representations or lived experiences. It also summarizes some of the major theoretical approaches covered in the textbook, including phenomenology, Foucault's work on sexuality, theories of habitus, psychoanalysis, and new materialism.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as TXT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as txt, pdf, or txt
    of 6

    vJ Contenta

    A Tfno Bocty, Gondor, cría oexualltr


    lntroductiori
    Laqueur and the shift to the two-sex system
    58
    The location of sexual difference In history
    61
    The body in fernlnlst theory: Simone de Beauvoir's The Spud Ser 63
    Foucault and the history of sexiiality
    64
    Queer theoiy and the body

    67
    The western-centrism of histories of gender and sexualiq
    69
    Conclusion

    7o
    5 Experlenolng the Body
    Introductton

    yg
    Phenomenology

    7S
    Feminist crltique of phenomenotogy: lris Marlon Young
    76
    Postcolonial crttlque of phenomenology: Frantz Fanon
    77

    IntroductiOr1

    yne rlse of the hletory of the boda


    The history of the body US a separate field was sliaped in the 1980S and 1990s.
    This new
    attention to the body has been variously referred to as the corporeal, bodily, or
    somatlC tum.
    Mefore this corporeal turn, historians nad, as the french
    medievallst Jacques le Goff put it, written the historles of men (and to a
    lesser

    History of bodily experíence: Barbara Duden


    79 extent, women) 'without
    bodies’, that 15 nistories of dlsei bodied people's

    Historical phenomenology:†he passlons Historlcal phenomenology: Pain Historical


    plienomenology:
    Race Bourdieu's notion of habitus Psychoanalysis and the body in history
    81 thoughts and ideas.' The body iR history had mostly been
    discussed by
    historlans
    82 Of mۥdicine, who, hot\fever, assumpd the Dody to be an
    unCbanging
    biologtcal
    84 entity. lt was the British hlstorlan Roy Porter who
    first
    proi5ded an oveiview
    85 of the new history of the body in 1991, in a volume
    edited by retet
    Burke that
    88 distanced itself from a more tradittonal history focused
    on the
    ‘obJectlve’ recon-

    Conclusion
    90
    s ructio
    oí political events. The nes history, b\
    contiast, was conceined wtth

    t Tl
    l, al dimensions, an analysis of structures and

    6 Matarlailet Approachee to the Body


    socio-economic, cultura
    and politlc
    lnterdtsdpltnary anaiysts of avaitety

    Introduction
    History, biology, and the neurosciences
    93 datly life‘ítombeloW’, all of this based On an
    94 oí primary sources and keen ti3 present opposlte vlewpoints.²
    Within this new

    New materialism: Karen Barad


    96 peispective, Porter addtessed the
    tnat so far this

    New materialism: Gilles Deleuze and the ‘becomirlg’ body Science and technology
    studies and the
    body: Bruno Latour Piaxiography: Annemarie Mol and Amade M'Charek Praxiography and
    history: Geertje
    Mak
    Conclusion

    Conoluplon

    Note.s
    9g
    103
    103
    107
    108

    115
    had been neglected because both the classical and the Judeo-Christian traditions
    neld a duatistic
    division Ot «ian, privíleging wind over body. However, Porter pointed to
    many developments,
    both In academia arld III society, whlCh hád stimulated gteater attention
    for the body,
    also among historians: Marxism, the work of Russian philosopher and llterary
    theorist Mlkhdll
    Bakhtin, the French
    Anuales histotlans, cultural anthropology, Sociotogy and medlcal sociology, íem-
    lnisin, historlcal demography, and the impaCt of AIDS.' These factors had
    led historlans
    to write about, for instance, the history of pain, hysterla, sexuality,

    Glossury
    139
    and beauty.
    histories of the body underlined the Cultural and historical varia-

    Furthep Reading
    Index
    t45 IS1
    These new body instead of viewlng it aS á fixPd biological given. The cultural

    liistorian Thomas Laqueur, for example, argued that from antiquity to the early
    modern period
    people dld not believe in the existence of two different bodies - male and female —
    but thought
    there was one type of body, of which the female was merely a less perfect version
    (see Chapter 4).
    This emphasis on the cultural history of the Dody was part of two, connected,
    innovations ir
    history writing: the cultural turn and the linguistic turn. Although in the first
    half oí the
    twentt- eth century some anthropologists and sociologlsts, as well as some of the
    French Annales
    historians, had aJready pard serious attentton to the body, from the
    1970s, and
    especlally in the 1980s and 1990s, the cultural turn shifted the focus of resemh
    in the humanities
    and social sciences írom socio-economtc sttuctuies and events in political history
    to the making of
    meanlng in daily llfe. This cultural turn was inforined by theortes from
    anthropology, sociology,
    and cultural stuó- ies. In the same period the lingulstic turn, based on
    notions derived from
    phi- losophy and literary saudíes, posited that meantng is made tlirough
    language,
    reptesentation, and discourse. In historiography tfie stronger emphasis on the-
    ory resulted
    mostly ftom the irnpact of poststructuzaltsm, which highllghted textual and
    discursive
    constructions of pfienomena, and their accompanying power stnictures.•
    Cultural theory was now also applied to make sense of the Dody as mediated
    introductton 3

    experienced their bodles? Can historians pnly approach the representation of


    ttie body tn
    bOOk5L, anguage, or lmages, or can they also gauge more individual, iiitimate
    feellngs? How can
    they include the material aspects of the body? Should holars study dnmtnant
    prescttpttons of
    corporeal behavl ttr tnat are imposed 'from above’, by lnstltutions ni
    ldeologle5, or should
    they take a vlew ‘frorn tielow’, from the perspecttve of otdtnaiy people?
    han we then speak
    of bodily '*8e*w’, of people's fteedom tO Shape their CfWn bodies? Thls book
    will revlew
    iheoites that have addtessed these qoestlons.
    The ratlonale behlnd thla bOOk
    ’this textbook aims to provide an overvlew of different theoretical approaches
    that dave been
    used to study the body In the past, showing how eaeh theory nlghllghts certain
    aspects of the
    body, and critically assesstng the advantages and pitíalls Of each appioñch.
    lt also
    exptoies how historians uninformed by theory have - by way of their empirical
    research — at
    times come to concluslons simiia› to ihose pxopounded En the abstract b9
    theorists. l am
    there(orecaieful
    not to deplct the field of body history as solely folloWlng developments in pbi-
    losophy ot theory, The tnteiaCtto»s ct cen theory ahí ÜiStO¥J i¥H mantfotd.

    through cultural sign systems. Thts implied a shih to representotions of


    the
    The reason why the history of the body 1s taken here as a separate
    field,

    body: rather than studying the body working, breathing, or belng ill In
    daily life,
    historians now became interested In how diseases were labelled, or which
    even thoug lt overlaps to SOmR M8
    of mediclne, gender, Sexuality, emotion,
    with other ílelós suCh as the history sports, fashion, and tne self, IS thát

    body parts were believed to constitute femaleness in certatn periodo. Ten


    years
    aftei writing his 1991 artlcle, Porter looked back upon the expansion of
    body history and
    was pleased to note that the field was booming, especlally its theo- retical
    dlmenslon. Porter
    expressed dissatisfaction, however, with the theoredcal approaches and methodology
    used by body
    hlstorians. Remindtng readers that body history 'Es not merely a matter of
    ciunching vital
    statistics, nor just a set of techniques for deciphering “represeritations”’,s
    he warned against
    a one-sided
    lncreasingly body history has become a speclflc conferences and journals, and
    scholars ldentlfying
    as disciplinary journal Body & SoreJy, for lnstance, was
    practlce has included more contrlbutlons from SOCIOIO ists phi
    than from hiStOnans. More recently, the German Journal BOd/ PoÍitirs. Zeltschñ S
    fiir Káty‹ $‹ hicbte (founded In 2013 and including contrlbutions in German
    and Engllsh) has been added to the )ournals publishin$ work on body history,

    rellance on theory, to the excluslon of empirical research.• He also noticed that


    though related articles can of
    course also be found in many other journals.

    much body history ‘has compounded a lack of methodological sophistlcation


    with a want of scholarly rigor. Authors have sloppily conflated bodily representa-
    mostly In those íocuslng on women's and gender history.
    In addltion to separate )ournals on the body, a number of mu

    tions with liistorical realitles’.7 Porter concluded that historians liad


    negtected
    views of body history have leen published.
    These series, as well as a recent

    the ways lndivtduals and social groups experlenced their embodied selves in the
    past.•
    In Porter's two review articles, the central questions in body history come to
    the fore: To what
    extent can historians reconstruct the ray people In the past
    monograph,'° however, pay little attention to the use of theory In body history.
    And while a
    number of textboo¥s have lncluded a discussion of tneoretical approaches to
    the body, these
    have mosdy been wrltten by sociologtsts and only

    4 History of the Body

    include a few historlcal examples." Therefore, this textbook aims to


    integrate soclal and
    cultural theory with a wealth oí historical examples. In the selection of
    theories and histories
    on the body, a number of choices have been made, on the Dasis of my own
    expertise, which lies
    mostly in the cultural and social history of the western world in the early
    modern and
    modern perlods. Anclent and medieval ideas on the body are discussed only in
    Chapter 1, which
    provldes a
    Introducdon 5

    ilourdleu's notion of ‘habitus’, and psychoanaiytlcal analysis. Lastly, Chapter 6


    reflects on the
    recent ‘material turn’ in the humanlties, and its effects on theofies and
    histories of the body.
    Apart from the ‘neurohlstorÍcál’ approach pr€iposed ley historias Dan1e1 Lord
    Smail, this
    chapter mostly díscusses ‘new materlalist’ sctiotars such as karen Barad and
    Gílles Deleuze,
    including those new material-
    ists wno can be classified as scholars working with a praxiOgraphical approach,

    historical overview of the most important changes in the fepiesentation of the


    body. Generally, the modern period is taken as point of reference. Furtliermore,
    tor example Annemaiie Mol.
    This recent material turn in the
    humanities can be regarded as the second body
    - to have influeJiced the hiStOJ Ot
    although this textbook does address the issues of race and (post)colonialism in
    several
    chapters, further research 1s needed to write a truJy global history of the
    oí theorles - in addition to the cultural turn
    the body. Chis influence is still ongoliig, and
    the iinpact f the material turn to be seen what exciting new

    body." Also, this book focuses mostly on cultural ideas about the body,
    ratlier
    than on socio-economic circumstances which impacted on people's health, and has
    opted to leave the
    interpretation of irnages of the body to art historians and histonans of vlsual
    cultura.'3

    The etructure of thla book


    After the opening chapter, which provides a historical overview of the
    most impoitant
    tontinuities and changes in Ideas on the body from antiquity to
    modernity, and explains
    a number of returning notlons (such as humoral the- ory), the next chapters
    each address a
    body of theory and the ways historians have applied those theorles. Chapter 2
    discusses the
    tnftuenttal notton of disct- pline, first conceptualized by sociologist Norbert
    Elias and
    philosopher Mlchel Foucault, as well as its corollary: bodily agency. Chapter 3
    elaborates on the
    more generó notlon of social construction, including arithropologlcal
    approaches such as the
    ideas of Mary Douglas, and theories that use the notion of the Dody or illness
    as metaphor.
    Chapter 4 presents the most important (feminist and queer) theories ori
    gender and
    sexuality that have been forinative for the field of body history, such as the
    work by Simone de
    Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler. Chapter 5 focuses on a philosophical
    strand that is
    tess well known ainong historians: that of phenomenology. Here, the ideas of
    FTench
    partos- opher Maurice Merleau-Ponty are discussed, includlng his feminist and
    post- colonial
    critics (lris Marion Young and lrantz Fanon respectively), as well as a number of
    historians who
    have used phenomenological approaches to interpret corporeal experiences in the
    past. Other
    approaches, also addressed in this chap- ter, which aim to zoom in on
    ‘embodiment’ - the lived
    Dody - include Pierre
    has not yet fully crystallized. lt therefore rernalns
    tkeoretical paths the histo@ Of the body will take in the future.

    You might also like