Rendering the Body: The Implicit Lessons of Gross Anatomy

This paper explores the role played by gross anatomy courses in university physical education curricula in developing objectifying attitudes toward the body in professional physical education practices. Calling on postmodern analyses of the politics of knowledge and the production of bodies, it is argued that students' experiences of the gross anatomy laboratory is actually an educational rite of passage in coming to see the body as a mechanical object, a useful resource in the production of physical capital. This professional attitude toward the body contributes to the abuse of the body in consumer culture, high performance sport, and the production of gendered bodies.