The ideals of the sportive lean body are predominant in the public discourses and images of the presence. They have an enormous normative power. There exists a market of different techniques to enhance the body. The own body by many people is regarded as non sufficient. This study interprets physicalness and its meanings as products of socio-cultural discourses. Therefore these meanings change during history. From renaissance to the middle of the 19th century for instance the ideal images of the body in European countries were predominantly corpulent. With the raise of the bourgeoisie around 1900 the lean body came into history. At the same period the idea came up that the modern subject itself is predominantly responsible for the fabrication of its own lean and healthy body. The study will explain in what socio-cultural contexts the production of the modern body discourses were established. It is an interesting fact that modern sport became popular in the same time.

Publications

Müllner, R. (2014). Herstellungspraxen des sportiven „fettfreien“ Körpers um 1900.Spectrum der Sportwissenschaft, 2, 98-116.

Müllner, R. (2014). Discourses on the Production of the Athletic Lean Body in Central Europe around 1900. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 31, 1896-1908. doi: 10.1080/09523367.2014.913238

Müllner, R. (2012). No Body is Perfect - Kulturhistorische Perspektiven auf den schlanken, "fettfreien" Körper und dessen Herstellungspraxen. Spectrum der Sportwissenschaften: Zeitschrift der Österreichischen Sportwissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft (ÖSG), Sportwissenschaft zwischen Bewegungsförderung und Trainingstherapie. Aktuelle Herausforderung und Perspektiven (Tagungsband). S. 7-13.