The Stark Center defines physical culture as “the various activities people have employed over the centuries to strengthen their bodies, enhance their physiques, increase their endurance, improve their health, fight against aging, and become better athletes”.
As home to one of the world’s leading research groups dedicated to the study of physical culture, the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports is proud to announce that the fifth Physical Cultures of the Body Conference will be a hybrid event. On Thursday all sessions will be held on Zoom. On Friday, all sessions will be held in-person at The Stark Center. There is no fee to participate in the conference.
Our focus remains on historical and other humanities-based approaches to the study of exercise, strength, sport training, strength athletes, competitive lifting, the healthful benefits of exercise, and all other aspects of what we call “physical culture” across the millennia. This conference is co-sponsored by the peer-reviewed journal Iron Game History: The Journal of Physical Culture. The journal has established two awards for the conference: The David P. Webster Award for Best Graduate Essay and The Terry Todd Award for Best Paper by a Working Scholar. Each award winner will receive $300.00. Submissions from scholars at all stages of their careers and from all academic disciplines are welcomed. To enter your paper in the contest, please contact Kim Beckwith (kim@starkcenter.org) for submission details.
Conference Schedule
Thursday January 16: Virtual Conference using Zoom. The virtual conference will consist of 75-minute sessions, thematically arranged, containing three papers of 20 minutes each and a 15-minute discussion period. The organizers will attempt to create sessions from individual papers, or you can submit an entire session of three papers and/or a panel presentation. Scholars already in Austin on Thursday will be able to watch the Zoom sessions at the Stark Center if they wish.
Thursday Evening: Reception at the Stark Center: We hope to hold a reception at the Stark Center for the in-person presenters already in Austin, TX. We will send details later and ask for RSVPs.
Friday, January 17: In-Person Sessions at the Stark Center: We intend to use the same 75-minute format for our in-person sessions, which will be held at the Stark Center on Friday. Please note: All presenters on Friday are expected to be in Austin. Our aim is to try and bring our scholarly community together.
Coffee, other drinks, bagels, and snacks will be provided free to conference attendees on Friday. We will share information on hotels and other matters when we know more about total number of Friday attendees.
The archives will be open all week before the conference if you wish to come early and do research. Please note that January 20 is a holiday (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) so the Stark Center and all of UT will be closed on that day.
To Submit a Paper or Session for Consideration
Please submit abstracts as a WORD DOC via email to kim@starkcenter.org. The abstract for individual papers should contain in order:
- Please write either ZOOM or IN PERSON at the top of the page. Please also indicate if this is an Individual Paper or Part of a Session. If part of a session/panel please also see below.
- Your name; academic affiliation; email address, and phone number. Graduate students must include the name of your supervising advisor and your departmental home.
- Full title of paper: as it should appear in the conference program.
- A 250-word abstract discussing the paper’s themes, sources, broad theoretical and/or methodological approaches, and significance of the research.
- Short biography of the author(s) of approximately 50 words each.
Session or panel organizers should submit a sheet containing all the information above for themselves and listing the names and affiliations of all speakers. Sessions should have an over-arching title, and each paper should be individually named. Abstracts may all be pasted into one document, or they can be submitted individually.
For questions, please email conference co-organizers:
- Kim Beckwith — kim@starkcenter.org
- Jan Todd — jan@starkcenter.org
- Charles Stocking — charles.stocking@austin.utexas.edu
Contact Information
Kim Beckwith, Stark Center fort Physical Culture and Sports
University of Texas, Austin, Texcas 78712
512-471-0995
Email: kim@starkcenter.org
URL: https://starkcenter.org/physical-cultures-of-the-body/physical-cultures-of-the-…
