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.