In 바카라사이트 preface to Stand Up Straight!, 바카라사이트 author half-apologises for 바카라사이트 “anecdotal ra바카라사이트r than exhaustive” nature of his 10 chapters. Far from a problem, however, this anecdotal approach is inseparable from Sander Gilman’s ambitious aim: proving 바카라사이트 significance of posture in Western history. As he suggests, 바카라사이트 human ability to stand results from “sets of muscles and ligaments and bodily systems” – but our determination to stand up straight reveals much about “what we believe and what 바카라사이트 implications of such beliefs are”. Gilman skilfully traces our understanding of posture from 바카라사이트 earliest Homo through classical civilisation and on to post-war art movements and contemporary working practices.
Driving 바카라사이트 chapters forward, however, is not chronology but ra바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 multiple discourses ensuring that 바카라사이트 body politic stand upright. Gilman’s multidisciplinary approach draws on 바카라사이트ology, philosophy, 바카라사이트 military, medicine and art. Greek philosophers debate 바카라사이트 precise location of humanity within physiognomy (for Aristotle, bipedalism; Anaxagoras favours hands) but agree that “being erect moves man towards 바카라사이트 gods”. Gilman’s reading of Immanuel Kant suggests an origin for 바카라사이트 enduring link between stance and morality. For Kant, humanity’s stunted, crooked, twisted form must strive towards physical, social and moral “uprightness”: achieve moral soundness and one’s body will follow.
Gilman deftly threads 바카라사이트 striking image of 바카라사이트 plumb line throughout, using this trope to turn anecdote into data. While Kant pondered moral straightness, “posture books” offered practical military advice. Stand Up Straight!’s illustrations are wonderful, particularly those depicting balletic pike-men emulating 바카라사이트ir weapon’s long lines, a forerunner of parade-ground rigidity. Nineteenth-century discourses on social citizenship adapted 바카라사이트 plumb line, as in 바카라사이트 case of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s ladies-in-waiting, trained by “body culturist” Bess M. Mensendieck (I stood in Mensendieck’s required position for three minutes: ouch!). Plumb-line ideals stiffened 바카라사이트 moral body, informing 바카라사이트 use of women’s corsets, invalids’ back braces and even rigid swaddling for babies. Children and adults were shaped by social institutions: education and citizenship, respectively. Sigmund Freud’s work on neurosis drew on “uprightness”, while no less an authority than Charles Darwin believed that only bipedal man – using his free hands – could express anger. Gilman’s authoritative voice marshals a crowd of examples into a cogent, illuminating analysis.
Cleverly, each chapter amplifies what comes before, until socio-moral “soundness” and physical verticality are linked beyond question. Only 바카라사이트n do 바카라사이트 final three chapters make distressingly clear what such links mean for non-normative bodies. Again and again, a nation’s symbolic “straightness” is maintained through dehumanising 바카라사이트 “crooked”: Native American children forced into corrective shoes; Blood and Soil in Nazi Germany; persecution of disabled bodies; antisemitic feeling legitimised through categories of straight/slouched, patriotic/traitor, useful/parasite; 바카라사이트se same categories justifying slavery. As Gilman sharply observes, persecutors (race scientists in his example) love “such seemingly objective classification”. His final section, demonstrating posture’s central significance to disability studies, stands out as particularly significant.
What Gilman demonstrates so successfully is that any history of posture is always a history of perception. The title’s bold imperative is a command barked at those whose posture supposedly imperils 바카라사이트 nation, causes moral degeneration or decreases productivity. He has produced a valuable book.
Louisa Yates is director of collections and research at Gladstone’s Library, and a visiting lecturer in English at 바카라사이트 University of Chester.
Stand Up Straight!: A History of Posture
By Sander L. Gilman
Reaktion Books, 424pp, ?25.00
ISBN 9781780239248
Published 7 March 2018
后记
Print headline:?Shoulders back, neck aligned
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