Physical Cultures of the Body

Virtual Conference, 2024

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Physical Cultures of the Body Award Winners

David P. Webster Graduate Student Essay Award and  Terry Todd Award for Best Paper by a Working Scholar

Terry Todd (left) and David P. Webster, O.B.E. (right)

The David P. Webster Graduate Student Essay Award was won by Louis Neymon, Paris-Saclay University, France, for his essay  “From the Force Culturiste to the Force Athlétique: France’s Culture Physique and the Early Days of French Powerlifting.”

The Terry Todd Award for Best Paper by a Working Scholar was won by Asim Kumar Halder and Professor Zheng Guohua, Shanghai University of Sport, China, for their essay “Training the Body, Healing the Self: The Martial and Medicinal Epistemology of Kalaripayattu, India’s Own Martial Art.”

Infographic with title that reads, "David P. Webster Graduate Student Essay Award Winner / Terry Todd Award for Best Paper by a Working Scholar" Below the title is the headshot of each winner. Louis Neymon won the graduate student award and Asim Kumar Halder with Zheng Guohua won for the best paper by a working scholar.

Below is a list of the 2026 Physical Cultures of the Body conference presentations. Video recordings of each presentation are available, if the participant’s written consent for publication has been received.

 

DAY ONE

Basudhita Basu – Defending Her Own ‘Body’: Historicizing Women’s Entry in the Physical Culture Movement of Colonial Bengal
Asim Kumar Halder – Training the Body, Healing the Self: The Martial and Medicinal Epistemology of Kalaripayattu, India’s Own Martial Art

Natascha Louw – Women’s Herstory Matter
Tatiana Konrad – Outdoor Sports, Disability Rights, and the Environment in The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)

Louis Neymon – From the Force Culturiste to the Force Athlétique: France’s Culture Physique and the Early Days of French Powerlifting
Mark Doyle – Barbells, Bulking and Bourdieu: The Social Transmission of Transformation in Powerlifting

Emma Pihl Skoog – ‘Dad on Parental Leave!’: Weightlifter Lennart “Hoa-Hoa” Dahlgren and the Construction of a New Dad in the Swedish Social Insurance Agency’s Campaign of the 1970s
Alec Hurley – Strongmen of the Valleys: Uncovering the Influence of Eugen Sandow in the Welsh Valleys During the Early 20th Century
John Fair – A Philadelphia Story: The William J. Herrmann Physical Training Institute

Airnel Abarra – “Empowerment of Hegemonic Subservience?”: Visualizing Female Bodybuilding in the Developing World
Hallie Franks – American Venuses: Ancient Sculpture and Women’s Physical Culture

Eduardo Galak – ‘To Remain United in Spite of All Vicissitudes’: Images of the Consequences of the Firpo–Dempsey Fight (1923) and Its Political Uses
David Chapman – American Champions: A Lost Legacy of Olympic Paintings

 

DAY TWO

Keisuke “Jima” Nakajima – On the Artificiality of Athletic Bodies: Technosomata in Physical Culture
Simon J. Bronner – The Domestication of Physical Culture: The Growth and Function of the “Home Gym”

Jonathan White – Lifting in Country: Launceston Elliot, Tom Pevier, Thomas Inch, and the Disorganization of British Weightlifting from 1891-1910
Dimitris Rigalos – “Strong as Tofalos!”: The Greek Strongman, Dimitrios Tofalos and the Politics of Strength

Mitch Snow – The “Dance of the Pole”: Ritual, Strength Training and Public Entertainment in Preconquest Mexico
Emalee Nelson Stone – Keiki in Motion: Camp Erdman, the YMCA, and the Pursuit of Health from the 1920s to Today

Martin Shuster – Critical Theory and/of Lifting
Jan Todd – A Forgotten Scottish Strongman: Jacobite John Murchison and His Lifting Stone

Cory Johnson – The Ideal Body Under Duress: The Uffizi Pankratiasts
Charles Stocking – Between Average and Ideal: Classical Sculpture and the Body Mass Index