Introduction: Historicizing the Body
Introduction: Historicizing the Body

Summary/Abstract: This collection of original studies is intended to bring a contribution to the field of “body studies” and the cultural history of the body. Mediated through language, disciplined by sciences, placed under political control and the medium of social relations, the body continues to escape the rigors of discourses and representations. therefore, under the title Bodies / Matter: Narratives of Corporeality, several articles, field notes, exhibitions and book reviews examine the ways in which the human body has been visually and narratively represented in different historical and scientific contexts. Through its multi-disciplinary perspective at the intersection of anthropological, sociological and historical reflection, the volume aims to explore how the concept of corporeality has been imagined in relation to identity, how it was shaped by scientific perspectives and how it was staged within exhibitions or artistic experiments. Beyond academic curiosity, the volume is linked to a growing interest in the body in contemporary society, which becomes – in the words of the sociologist Brian Turner – the “main field of cultural and political activity” in a “somatic society”.

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