ARPL 2026 - Le corps dans tous ses états : un vecteur d'émancipation à travers le temps

By Georges Vigarello (historian)

Suitable for all ages › Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes › Booking essential

For this introductory evening to the Month of the Enlightenment, historian Georges Vigarello will take us on an exploration of attitudes towards the body through the ages, examining how representations and practices relating to the body have evolved over time. His works, such as *Le Corps redressé* (1978), *Histoire de la beauté: le corps et l’art d’embellir de la Renaissance à nos jours* (2004), and *Le Sentiment de soi. A History of the Perception of the Body (16th–20th Centuries) (2014), demonstrate how social, medical and cultural norms shape our perception of the body, from hygiene to aesthetics. By highlighting how the body serves as a vehicle for individual emancipation, this evening’s event will offer us a vivid illustration of Enlightenment philosophy.

Georges Vigarello, a historian, is renowned for his work on the body, the history of hygiene, health and bodily practices; he has authored numerous seminal works such as *Clean and Dirty*. *L'hygiène du corps depuis le Moyen Âge* (1987), *Histoire du viol : XVIe – XXe siècles* (1998), which examines representations of violence, and, more recently, *Les logiques du corps, une autre manière de penser le temps* (Seuil, 2026), Georges Vigarello is a leading populariser of the social history of the body through the ages.