Sabbatical - Henk de Smaele.

This sabbatical leave (including a 6 month Visiting Fellowship at Birkbeck College, University of London) will be used to work on a monograph provisionally titled: A Political History of the Nude: Citizenship, Sexuality and the Body in the Modern West. Since the nineteenth century, images of the male nude have become exceptional in European mainstream visual culture, while representations of female nudity are widespread and have become generally accepted. The image of the desirable and passive woman fitted well into the general discourse on sex-differences and reinforced gender inequalities. Women were considered more beautiful and desirable but less independent and rational than men. Women were mistresses of the house, while men were at home on the forum and - if necessary - on the battlefield. It is however striking that the short periods of revival of the public male nude coincided with the resurgence of 'republican' (as opposed to 'liberal') political ideas. Male nudes were numerous in neoclassical history painting during the French Revolutionary era. They returned in the socialist art of the late nineteenth century, in the fascist and national-socialist propaganda of the 1930s. In these contexts, the nude male body was an image of strength, power and 'manliness'. Republicanism rarely contributed to the political emancipation of women however. Why then was the image of the male nude considered a threat in liberal political cultures, while it was favoured in republican cultures? What was the link between liberalism and the disappearance of the male body? And why was the naked citizen so crucial for republicans?

Keywords:POLITICAL HISTORY, MASCULINITIES, HISTORY OF THE BODY, GENDER

Disciplines:History