Alexandra Roginski - The unceasing work of many selves: Histories of self-improvement

Alexandra Roginski - The unceasing work of many selves: Histories of self-improvement

Self-improvement practices aimed at cultivating mind, body and spirit infuse our culture. Many of us willingly participate but also endure constant ‘wellness’ impositions from advertisers and workplaces. A foray into the archives of practitioners who sold everything from esoteric psychology to physical culture during the early twentieth century draws out the tensions between pleasure and coercion in the language and work of self-improvement, as well as the play for authority by its loudest vendors.  

Dr Alexandra Roginski is a historian based on Kulin land (Melbourne) who explores practices and ideas of the body, past and present. She is the author of The Hanged Man and the Body Thief (Monash, 2015) and the forthcoming Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World (Cambridge University Press).