Uplifting: Strength Training Through History and Across Cultures

 

- International Conference - Cardiff University - 8-10 June 2027 -

This conference seeks to explore new understandings of contemporary, historical and cross-cultural practices of strength training.

Many cultures and societies around the world and throughout history have developed different kinds of strength training, and for many different kinds of purpose.

Varieties of strength training proliferated massively in modernity, with significant cross-cultural exchange and intercultural dialogue, often connected to nationalist and modernising projects, but also performance, spectacle, competition, display, calisthenics, rehab and therapy, strongman/strongwoman cultures, physical culture, martial arts, religion, spirituality, (para)military practices, and more.

Throughout the twentieth century, amplified by the proliferation of media, marketing, and the emergence of discourses of ‘health and fitness’, myriad approaches to strength training developed, had their day in the sun, and then receded. The social media saturated twenty first century has arguably generated the most complex and conflictual field of discourses and practices of strength training ever seen.

Scholars – from historians to philosophers, sociologists to cultural theorists – have often exhibited a marked ambivalence on the subject of strength training, vacillating between scathing interpretations and negative judgements of narcissism, nationalism, or neoliberalism, on the one hand, and affirmations of its value in self-development, cultural improvement and even emancipation from earlier forms of subjection, on the other.

This conference asks:

  • What are the most appropriate ways to understand strength training, globally and locally, today?

  • What are the most helpful theories and philosophies to develop our understanding of strength training? Must these be rooted in specific historical, social, cultural and political contexts, or can ‘universal’ or ‘transcultural’ knowledge be developed?

  • What are the most insightful methodologies and ways of researching strength training?

  • Historically, what have been – and what may become in future – the relationships between strength training, culture and politics?

  • What are the historical and emergent relationships between strength training and such conflictual realms as gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, region and religion?

  • What are the relationships between strength training and social or political struggle?

  • What are the most interesting or significant contemporary dominant and emergent practices, discourses and ideologies of strength training?

  • Might focusing the academic gaze more closely on strength training offer new insights into such ongoing issues as manosphere/misogyny, nationalism, racism, trans issues, class struggle, or the problems and possibilities of social media?

We are particularly interested in works that offer new understandings of aspects or examples of strength training practices or cultures in relation to the themes suggested above, but we are also open to any innovative and engaging work that offers new insights into the social, cultural, political or historical study of strength training of any kind.

We welcome contributions that approach the term ‘strength training’ broadly and creatively. Contributions need not think solely of modern gym culture.

Please note: this is an interdisciplinary conference based in a school of journalism, media and cultural studies. Participants may be independent scholars, but proposals must demonstrate an awareness of the academic approaches current within the relevant areas of contemporary arts, humanities and social sciences.

To submit an abstract:

Email one Microsoft Word Document to Paul Bowman (BowmanP@cardiff.ac.uk), containing:

  1. Presentation title

  2. 250-word abstract

  3. 75-word bio-note

  4. Your contact email

Key Dates

  • Deadline for Abstract Submissions: Monday 1st February 2027

  • Notification of Outcome: Monday 1st March 2027

  • Registration Opens: Monday 5th April 2027

  • Registration Closes: Wednesday 12th May 2027

  • Date of Conference: 8-10 June 2027

Venue

Contact/Organiser

Professor Paul Bowman

BowmanP@cardiff.ac.uk

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