Race, History and the Quest for Body Perfection

3 Hours

Explore issues of race, gender, and sexuality as applied to the human body through the lens of cultural history. Examine beliefs about what has been considered "beautiful," "fit," "obese," and "healthy" and bodies have been defined as "masculine," "feminine," or outside this traditional binary. Assess how the human body has been measured and critiqued by physical educators, scientists, and government agencies; how muscularity and the quest for ideal measurements has been celebrated and derided in different historical eras; how beauty and physique contests celebrate particular kinds of bodies; and how ideal bodies have been portrayed in art, photography and film.