Desirability and domination: Greek sculpture and the modern male body (23 June 2011)

Lunch Hour Lecture on tour at the British Museum: Desirability and domination: Greek sculpture and the modern male body

Professor Maria Wyke (UCL Greek and Latin)

This lecture discusses Greek sculptures and some of the ways in which their ideal representations of the male body have shaped the twentieth century strong man and the bodybuilder, particularly in terms of their display of power and sexuality. The talk includes the culture of the circus strongman, bodybuilding shows, physique magazines and the post-war craze for Italian sword-and-sandal films starring bodybuilders as ancient heroes.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• UCL Lunch Hour Lectures
• Sculpture
• Greek
• male body
• Maria Wyke
• UCL Greek & Latin

[Zachbro39]

As young man of age 20 who loves learning about history this was very intresting to me. As i also enjoy sculpting my body, ive always wondered about the statues of Adonis and Hurcules and what inspired these men to carve such wonderous statues. I do say i strive for the Adonis complex and i deffinetly see the resemblance between modern day body building and ancient body building.

[LadyBludgeon]

I would be interested in watching that lecture on female body builders and how it questions the typical roles and traditions of women throughout the ages. Anyways thank you so much for posting this video. It is very enlightening and rare. It's very difficult to find docs on male body images, so I'm definitely going to recommend this one. Thank you again for the video. Peace.