Title: Introduction: Historicizing the Body Authors: Alexandra Ion, Corina Doboş How to cite this article: Ion, “lexandra and Corina Doboş. 5. Introduction: Historicizing the Body. Martor 20: 7-10. Published by: Editura MARTOR (MARTOR Publishing House), Muzeul Ţăranului Român (The Museum of the Romanian Peasant) URL: http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro/archive/768-2/ Martor (The Museum of the Romanian Peasant Anthropology Review) is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1996, with a focus on cultural and visual anthropology, ethnology, museum studies and the dialogue among these disciplines. Martor review is published by the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. Its aim is to provide, as widely as possible, a rich content at the highest academic and editorial standards for scientific, educational and (in)formational goals. Any use aside from these purposes and without mentioning the source of the article(s) is prohibited and will be considered an infringement of copyright. Martor Revue d’“nthropologie du Musée du Paysan Roumain est un journal académique en système peer-review fondé en 1996, qui se concentre sur l’anthropologie visuelle et culturelle, l’ethnologie, la muséologie et sur le dialogue entre ces disciplines. La revue Martor est publiée par le Musée du Paysan Roumain. Son aspiration est de généraliser l’accès vers un riche contenu au plus haut niveau du point de vue académique et éditorial pour des objectifs scientifiques, éducatifs et informationnels. Toute utilisation au-delà de ces buts et sans mentionner la source des articles est interdite et sera considérée une violation des droits de l’auteur. Martor is indexed by EBSCO and CEEOL. http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Introduction ...........Historicizing the Body Corina Dobo[ Researcher at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila" in Bucharest and University of Bucharest Alexandra Ion Institute of Anthropology “Francisc I. Rainer” of the Romanian Academy his collection of original studies is History, University of Bucharest. he goal intended to bring a contribution of the event was to bring together Romanian Tto the ield of “body studies” and specialists from the ield of humanities the cultural history of the body. Mediated and social sciences and to promote the through language, disciplined by sciences, “body studies” as a strong ield of research placed under political control and the within this local context. he cultural medium of social relations, the body history of the body has been an intensely continues to escape the rigors of discourses researched domain in the academia in and representations. herefore, under the last couple of decades. Modernity the title Bodies / Matter: Narratives of opened the body as a ield of study, paving Corporeality, several articles, ield notes, the way to deconstruct its meanings and exhibitions and book reviews examine the layers. he irst generation of the Annales ways in which the human body has been school (Mark Block), the postwar social visually and narratively represented in history, historical demography and cultural diferent historical and scientiic contexts. anthropology (Mary Douglas and Victor hrough its multi-disciplinary perspective Turner), or the history of medicine (Charles at the intersection of anthropological, Rosenberg, Georges Canguilhem) placed sociological and historical relection, the high interest in the political symbolism of volume aims to explore how the concept the human body (Kantoroviz), the health of corporeality has been imagined in of the population in history, the status of relation to identity, how it was shaped by the human body in the development of scientiic perspectives and how it was staged medical sciences or the diferent meanings within exhibitions or artistic experiments. the human body is invested with in local Beyond academic curiosity, the volume is cultures (Jenner and Taithe 2003, 187-191). linked to a growing interest in the body in However, the “history of the body” emerged contemporary society, which becomes – in as an autonomous ield of academic inquiry, the words of the sociologist Brian Turner becoming the “historiographical dish of – the “main ield of cultural and political the day” (Roy Porter in Cooter 2010, 393) activity” in a “somatic society”. in the last decades of the 20th century (Jenner and Taithe 2003, 190-191). his he volume is the result of a journey advent is explained (Cooter 2010; Jenner which started in May 2014 with a and Taithe 2003) or preigured (Duden conference organized at the Faculty of 1990, 1-49) in the context of the general 7 http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Corina Doboș, Alexandra Ion development of the post-Marxist, post- “history of the body” as an autonomous ield structuralist and feminist historiography. of academic inquiry seems to be threatened he emergence of the “history of the body” not only by the changing historiographical as a new and difuse domain of cultural context, but also by the methodological history drawing from literary approaches dilemmas and contradictions of the ield to social constructivist traditions was made itself, torn among representationalists (e.g. possible by the historicization of the human Laquer 1991), experientalists (e.g. Duden body, along the postmodernist lines set by 1987) or idealists (Jenner and Taithe 2003, the linguistic turn and New Historicism, 194-197; Cooter 2010, 398). he emergence greatly indebted to historical anthropology, of the “material turn” in historiography Foucault’s historical epistemology, feminist could be seen as a compromise meant to studies and cultural history. As Cooter rescue the “human body” from the return to puts it: a pure a-historical biological essentialism. “Situating bodies historically in their appropriate 'representational regimes' was However, in Romania, this area of part and parcel of the re-thinking of the research is yet to be fully developed as meaning, purpose and shape of history. standing on its own. hus far, the interest 1) This is by no means an exhaustive list. On Increasingly, therefore, history (as in the has mostly been occasional, with very the other hand, there are numerous other history of the body) was approached as a few researchers identifying themselves researchers who have text: authored, discursive, and malleable as specialists in the related ields. Among approached the body in 1 their studies, but either in every respect. It was as a made up text notable contributions , in the sociology it is not the main focus that it became a resource for (historical) of the body, we would like to mention of their study, or their interest has been only constructivist and (literary) deconstructivist the works of Gabriel Jderu focusing on occasional. analysis, neither of which was any longer motorcyclists’ bodies, Ramona Marinache’s very separable.” (Cooter 2010, 397) study of the body asleep, Laura Grunberg and the body of ighters investigated by hus, ater authors such as Marcel Mauss Alexandru Dincovici; in cultural and and Norbert Elias introduced the body in medical anthropology – Andrei Mihail, the history of mentalities, Michel Foucault Valentin-Veron Toma and Elena Bărbulescu. highlighted the way in which bodies have More studies focused on the construction been used as a predilect place for the of bodies have been in the area of medical manifestation of modern state control history (Daniela Sechel, Constantin over the individual, while Pierre Bourdieu Bărbulescu, Lidia Trăușan-Matu, Octavian explored the way in which social norms are Buda, Adrian Majuru), the history of appropriated in and through performing sexuality (Constanța Vintilă-Ghițulescu), bodies. Feminist critic Judith Butler made the history of eugenics (Marius Turda, us doubt that sex is a natural category and Maria Bucur, Tudor Georgescu), the history showed how gender is a learnt quality, of childhood (Nicoleta Roman, Simona while sociologists Brian Turner and Chris Preda), gender studies (Mihaela Miroiu, Shilling have highlighted the multitude Luciana Jinga, Oana Băluță, Maria Bucur), of signiicances the human body acquires the history of criminology (Corina Doboș, in the deinition of a modern individual. Gabriel Constantinescu) and the history Researchers have explored the history of of reproductive policies in communist collecting and dissecting human bodies, Romania (Gail Kligman). of gazing and learning from bodies, of constructing bodies in a capitalistic society, he studies in this volume cover a or breaking them down as commodities. wide range of these ields, from history, anthropology, art history and literary Nevertheless, the endurance of the studies. hey all share an anti-essentialist 8 http://martor.muzeultaranuluiroman.ro / www.cimec.ro Introduction: Historicizing the Body perspective on the human body, conceived Mihail. All three articles tackle with the as a historical artifact, a discursive human body as objectiied by the medical construction at the intersection of inner gaze, produced by the medical discourse experiences and societal projections, and subjected to medical and political permanently negotiated and (re)invested intervention, in diferent times and settings with meaning. his perspective does of modern and contemporary Romanian privilege the historicity of both matter and history, showing how these medical representations: neither substance, nor its constructions translate speciic professional form are given entities with a “natural” objectives, social hierarchies and political existence, as