Twelfth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

This paper analyzes, from a transdisciplinary perspective, the conception of the body and its interaction with the environment in Thomas Mann’s masterpiece, The Magic Mountain. In the first part, the author examines the relationship of the body with its space. The flatness and the mountain allowed two very different ways of experiencing the body; for this analysis, the concept of geohistory, proposed by Fernand Braudel, is useful. In the second part, the body’s performance in the community will be described, specifically in the population of Berghof sanatorium. Here, the figurational sociology of Norbert Elias will be very useful to elucidate the symbolic meaning of the body and its daily rituals. Finally, this research explores the relationship of the subject with his own body, focusing on the bodily experiences lived by Hans Castorp; specifically, three physical experiences are observed: the experience of health and disease, the mystical experience, and the sporting experience. Susan Sontag’s metaphors and Marcel Maus’s body techniques guide us on this last leg of our journey. Regarding sport, the author lets Thomas Mann express the conception of this triumph of modernity through his characters.