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Conor Heffernan
Dr Conor Heffernan is lecturer in the Sociology of Sport at the University of Ulster. His work focuses on health and body cultures in Ireland, Great Britain and the United States. Previous research has discussed Indian club swinging in nineteenth-century England and India, Indian bodybuilders in the 1940s, the birth of Irish weightlifting and nineteenth-century fitness entrepreneurs in the United States. In 2021, Conor published The History of Physical Culture in Ireland with Palgrave Macmillan. This book was the first of its kind to examine the emergence of physical culture in Ireland with reference to ideas of nationalism, gender, eugenics and state identity. Conor is currently working on a book detailing the rise of Indian club swinging in the nineteenth century and its global spread. Outside of academia, Conor also runs Physical Culture Study, a public history website dedicated to the study of health and fitness from a historical perspective.
Contact: School of Sport, Jordanstown, Shore Road, BT37 0QB, Belfast, Northern Ireland.