From 1909 to 1940 the medical professor Johannes Lindhard, struggled to
establish gymnastics as a subject at the University of Copenhagen and in doing
so, he faced a complex situation. He had to make sure that he did not lose his
scientific integrity; that the intellectual authority in gymnastic matters was
transferred to the university in a way that did not undermine the political
support that had made it possible to add gymnastics to the subjects taught there;
and that gymnastics gained scientific authority within the university. In striving
to meet these demands, he managed to write five textbooks and conduct
internationally acclaimed research into exercise as well as muscular physiology.
Due to his central position in the institutionalisation of gymnastics at the
university, he was given the opportunity of forging the emerging national
discipline in ways that fitted his vision of gymnastics in society. This story is
studied as a case of disciplinary formation, and investigates the question of
whether it supports the critical perspective of disciplines as instruments of
illegitimate power or the conservative ‘providential’ claim that disciplinary
science is as it ought to be.