This course exposes students to a range of sociological, philosophical social psychological and human rights oriented theories of violence, abuse and suffering in/as physical culture. In the course, we examine not only those forms of physically, emotionally and psychologically damaging instances of interpersonal aggression commonly found in and around physical cultures, but also forms of violence and abuse implicitly connected to the production, performance and maintenance of specific physical cultures. Over the course of the semester we deconstruct manifestations of physical cultural violence in a variety of settings in Canada and elsewhere, discuss embodied experiences with violence, and abuse, examine the ubiquity and ethics of suffering in human physical cultures, question the health-related outcomes of violence in physical cultures, and inspect the ideological and institutional systems supporting the performance of violence in physical cultures.

NOT OFFERED IN 2026-27