Embodying Histories: Playing with swords? Historically informed performance as a research method for the study of technical literature

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The fight books, a corpus of technical literature appearing in Europe in the 14th c., contain records of martial arts systems. Following the embodied turn in historical studies, new research developments arose around the concept of RRR (Reconstruction, Replication and Reenactment) in the Humanities and Social Sciences. By focusing on the interpretation of obscure technical terms and notation of movements in the original sources, theoretical hypotheses are tested physically. The results of these experiments shed a new light on the interpretation of primary sources. The documentation process of these interpretations, which are reconstruction of embodied knowledge by expert martial artists based on the study of fight books, requires the invention of new methods. The motion capture of the experiments produces datasets which can be used for research purposes, but also for public engagement initiatives, in museum context for instance.

Embodying Histories is funded by the Baermann's Body project and hosted in collaboration with the University of York's Historical Practice Research Network and School of Arts and Creative Technologies, and the Performance and Embodiment cluster at the Orpheus Instituut Gent.

The seminars are free and open to anyone to attend. They will comprise a mixture of presentation and discussion.

Daniel Jaquet is a current Fulbright Scholar in the Department of History at the University of Chicago. A medievalist with a background in literary studies and interests in history of science and material culture in the early modern period, he specializes in martial arts studies, with specific interest into the production, transmission, and reception of embodied knowledge in the past. His current project is looking into the development of physical exercises in the United States (1820-1920), especially the reception of Swedish Gymnastics and its influence in the United States.