Sunday, June 14, 2009

"Skeletons in the Closet: 'The Eternally Wounded Woman': Women, Exercise and Doctors in the late Nineteenth Century" a talk and slide presentation by Patricia Vertinsky, Sports Historian and UBC Human Kinetics professor.

Presented by the HERSTORY CAFE and the MUSEUM OF VANCOUVER
Saturday June 27, 2009
1pm-2pm
Museum of Vancouver, 1100 Chestnut St. (in Vanier Park)
More info: www.herstorycafe.ca
Free admission

"Vertinsky examines the debate about women and exercise from the points of view of the male medical establishment, the early pioneer female doctors, intellectual feminism and the developing profession of psychology... . What men and women doctors had to say about female health and physical activity had an important impact upon the lifestyle and outlook of middle-class women and provided a legacy which has had a lasting effect," a quote from the back cover of Vertinsky's book, "The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, Exercise and Doctors in the late Nineteenth Century". This talk incorporates the themes of culture, physicality and the making of the female body.

Dr Patricia Vertinsky is a Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Human Kinetics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She is a social and cultural historian working across the fields of women's history, sport history and sociology, popular culture and the history of health and medicine.

Her expertise lies in the study of normalizing disciplinary regimes in kinesiology and sport science and the social, political, and scientific context in which they have been conceived and promoted . Dr Vertinsky was the first Canadian woman to become a Fellow of the Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education, Past-President of the North American Society of Sport History, Vice-President of the International Society for Physical Education and Sport History and Fellow of the European Committee for Sport History. She was recently awarded an honorary Doctorate degree at the University of Copenhagen.