Please join us January 24th at 12:15 p.m. for the 2019-2020 Robert I. Strozier Faculty Lecture: "Physicality, Femininity, and Illustrations of Muscular Women in Victorian Periodicals" by Dr. Marcus Mitchell from the Writing and Linguistics department.

In the Victorian (1837-1901) periodical press, the figure of the muscular woman sparked debates about the value of strenuous physical fitness regimens for women and illuminated wider uncertainties about aesthetic ideals of British feminine decorum. While these debates and anxieties were largely documented in written commentaries, they were also advanced by contradictory illustrations of muscular women. Dr. Mitchell explores how these illustrations—along with the essays, anecdotes, and poems they often accompanied—revealed layered interpretations and subtexts that the aesthetics of the muscular female body evoked, thus capturing divergent attitudes toward female musculature in Victorian culture.

Faculty, staff, students, and community members welcome. Strozier Faculty Lectures are held in the Ogeechee Theater on the Armstrong Campus. The Robert I. Strozier series honors Professor Emeritus of English Robert Strozier who served the Armstrong community for more than four decades.