I'm giving a talk today in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University, which it will also be possible to attend online via Teams. Details below.
Research Seminar (Hybrid)
Title: Can the Bodybuilder Speak?
All are welcome.
The stereotype of the dumb bodybuilder conforms to the most entrenched binary of the Western philosophical tradition: too much body must mean not enough brain. Faced with the enigma of the ‘mute speech’ of outsized lumps of meat who obsessively make themselves bigger for unclear reasons by moving metal up and down quasi-mechanically, cultural theorists and social critics have long been quick to provide interpretations. The interpretations constructed by such scholars have often been harsh – often increasingly harsh as the 20th century progressed.
Fully installed in the public sphere by the late 1970s, the bodybuilder has been theorised as a narcissist, as antisocial, as a hypertrophic exemplification of ‘mass’ culture, the spectacular subject of the society of the spectacle, as the ultimate neoliberal individualist, even as a fascist. However, to what extent have such interpretations been formed fairly, and to what extent have they been projected onto ‘mute’ bodies illegitimately? Why is it that even bodybuilders themselves don’t seem able to articulate ‘that certain je ne sais quoi’ that pulls them back to the church, temple, factory or foundry of the gym?
My title, ‘Can the Bodybuilder Speak?’ echoes Gayatri Spivak’s argument that the subaltern is principally ‘spoken by’ dominant institutions, rather than allowed to speak or be ‘heard’ correctly. But what does the built body or the building of the body ‘say’? Is it even right to interpret bodybuilding as ‘saying’ anything at all?
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Paul Bowman is professor of cultural studies at Cardiff University. His most recent book is The Invention of Martial Arts (Oxford University Press, 2021). His next book, The Sublime Object of Orientalism is forthcoming from Hong Kong University Press in 2026.
Joining Info
Date: Wednesday, 12th November 2025
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:15 pm
Venue: Room 1.10A, 2 Central Square
Format: In-person and online via MS Teams
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