The human body fills a central role in the establishment of power and authority in every time and place (by delineating, for instance, the cultured and the vulgar, the normal and the pathological, the natural and the artificial, and the masculine and the feminine).  This course will focus on the relationship of the body to the rise of liberal democracy since the seventeenth century.  Lessons will be based on an historical examination of different body types, including the working body, the gendered body, the dead body, the racial body, and the dandified body, all of which constitute essential elements for creating a modern “civic body.”