GLAM: Guest Lectures in American studies Münster

Antibelly - Reforming American Bodies in the Antebellum Era

Dr. Maxi Albrecht

This talk centers on the ways bodies are conceptualized, constructed, negotiated, regulated, disciplined and how they bear meanings, be those positive or negative, in the antebellum era. Tracing American bodies through the writings of health reformer Sylvester Graham, the popular genre of city mysteries, and the manuals and manifestos put forth by utopian communities in the antebellum era, discourses around eating, body care, and fitness, the moralizing dimensions of disciplining and regulating the corporeal constitution of antebellum citizens emerge as one the answers to the antebellum’s moment of crisis amidst struggles around slavery, women’s rights, worker’s rights, temperance, and prison, education and health reform.