News
Center Fellow Awarded Grant to Explore Caribbean Climate Crisis
FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, in collaboration with UPR Cayey, has received a $650,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project titled, “Rhizomatic Nexus: Cultural Dimensions of Ecological Instability.” Researchers will investigate the cultural dimensions of ecological instability by studying the experiences of vulnerable communities in South Florida and Puerto Rico. This approach will enable them to capture the nuanced ways in which communities are responding to ecological disruptions. “Our project is focused on building interdisciplinary networks and capacities,” said Katharina Rynkiewich, Ph.D., co-PI and an assistant professor in FAU’s Department of Anthropology. “We aim to be a central hub for scholars using ethnographic methods to study cultural responses to ecological instability in tropical and subtropical regions. Our research also emphasizes community outreach and participatory action research, centered on the Rhizomatic Nexus theme of everyday experiences with environmental change.” Read the full annoncement here.
2024 Conference Awarded Grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund
As part of the grant, the Center will host a two-day conference on Nov. 7 and 8 at FAU’s Boca Raton campus, which will focus on defining atmosphere and its role on creativity, community, trust, learning, spirituality and the sacred. Conference presenters will include key theorists of atmosphere and mood along with artists and designers working with atmosphere as well as thinkers focused on fostering spirituality, community and creativity. The conference is expected to have a positive impact in three vital areas: human health, creativity, and transcultural and transdisciplinary understanding. Read the full annoncement here.
New Somaesthteics Center in Krakow, Poland
The Center has established a new partnership with the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts in Poland to launch a “Center for Somaesthetics and the Arts,” dedicated to joint scholarly research and creative programs. See the press release here.
Lecture and Book Launch: Ars Erotica
Ars Erotica: Sex and Somaesthetics
Lecture and Book Launch
Dr. Shusterman explains how a new somaesthetic approach could channel the power of eros to cultivate qualities of courtesy, grace, skill, self-mastery and sensitivity to the feelings of others. Through such an approach, we can imagine a richer, more positive vision of sex education than we have today. Joining Dr. Shusterman to discuss the book are two faculty members who are distinguished experts in some of the cultures and themes of the book. They are: Dr, Kenneth Holloway, Levenson Professor of Asian Studies and Associate Professor History, an expert on Chinese and Buddhist culture and author of Guodian: The Newly Discovered Seeds of Chinese Religious and Political Philosophy (2009) and The Quest for Ecstatic Morality in Early China (2013), both published by Oxford University Press; and Dr. Rebecca LeMoine, Associate Professor of Political Science, expert in Greek political theory, and author of Plato’s Caves: The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2020).
- When: 4 PM, Monday, November 15, 2021
- Where: Performing Arts Building PA 101| FAU BOCA RATON
- Free and open to the public.
- While registration is not required to attend the event, it is recommended so that you can be notified of future events conducted by the Center of Body, Mind, and Culture.
Book Description
The term ars erotica refers to the styles and techniques of lovemaking with the honorific title of art. But in what sense are these practices artistic and how do they contribute to the aesthetics and ethics of self-cultivation in the art of living? In this book, Richard Shusterman offers a critical, comparative analysis of the erotic theories proposed by the most influential premodern cultural traditions that shaped our contemporary world. Beginning with ancient Greece, whose god of desiring love gave eroticism its name, Shusterman examines the Judaeo-Christian biblical tradition and the classical erotic theories of Chinese, Indian, Islamic, and Japanese cultures, before concluding with medieval and Renaissance Europe. His exploration of their errors and insights shows how we could improve the quality of life and love today. By using the engine of eros to cultivate qualities of sensitivity, grace, skill, and self-mastery, we can reimagine a richer, more positive vision of sex education.
Reviews
'With a panoramic horizon that draws upon the full compass of sexual culture, world philosopher Richard Shusterman in his Ars Erotica elevates and ennobles sexuality by finding the crucial isomorphisms between deference and a situated, contrapuntal musicality, between artistry and the intensity of pleasure, between sensual imagination and intelligent practice. Shusterman continues his somaesthetic revolution by taking the stodgy professional discipline to task with a sex education that seeks to refine rather than contain, and to elevate rather than ignore this vital aspect of the human experience.'
Roger T. Ames - Peking University
'The unending struggle to reconcile the ‘base’ demands of the desiring body with the elevating aspirations of culture defines human history. Drawing on his pioneering work in somaesthetics, Richard Shusterman displays extraordinary erudition in presenting the ways in which seven great civilizations have fashioned an ars erotica seeking to do justice to both.'
Martin Jay - University of California, Berkeley
Discount Flyer
To recieve a discount on Ars Erotica: Sex and Somaesthetics please click here or see the disconted flyer below.
Conference: The Promise of Pragmatist Aesthetics
For the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Pragmatist Aesthetics (1992), the MOME (Moholy Nagy University of Art and Design) and the Hungarian Forum for Somaesthetics is organizing a conference in Budapest between May 25-28th, 2022. The title of the conference is "The Promise of Pragmatist Aesthetics: Looking Forward after 30 Years.”
To see the Call for Papers, click here.
Conference: The Annual Northwest Philosophy Conference
Dr. Shusterman will be particpating at the 72nd Annual Northwest Philosophy Conference as part of their "Author Meets Critics Session" on Ars Erotica on November 12-13, 2021. To see the panel participates, click here. For more information, including the schedule and registration, click here.
The Northwest Philosophy Conference is held each fall, attracting philosophers from across the United States and abroad. The primary purpose of this conference is to provide a forum for philosophical work as a service to the profession. This has been the major professional philosophy conference in the region for the past 73 years.
Chinese Somaesthetics Conference
The Center’s partner in Shanghai, the Center of Somaesthetics at ECNU, will be co-hosting a somaesthetics conference with the somaesthetics institute at Shenzhen University on October 15-16, 2021.
Link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/c-6RtDI57WxcICaBvhsIwA
Lecture: Soma as and in Space: Public and Private
For the program, click here.
Older News
"Redefining the 'Distant Mirror of our Time:' Basic Concepts and Symbols in Baroque Art and Philosophy
Lecture by Else Marie Bukdahl at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 23 at Living Room Theaters.
Please click here for information regarding the Dorothy F. Schmidt Fellowship in Somaesthetics.
‘Zen Buddhism: Roots and Branches’
The Center for Body, Mind and Culture and the Asian Studies Program in Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters is hosting a conference on “Zen Buddhism: Roots and Branches,” on Friday, November 2, 2018 @ and Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. There is no fee to register, however advanced registration is advised. To register, email bodymindculture@gmail.com.
The conference will examine Zen Buddhism (or Chan Buddhism as it is known in China), which is both a religion and a bodily practice with branches that have spread over the world. Its roots first developed in China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), and by the 13th century had spread to Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Today, Zen practice and theory have become prominent also throughout the Western world. This conference provides a forum for research on both the early development and the later spread of Zen.
“We are delighted to explore the history and contemporary expression of Zen together with an international and transdisciplinary group of experts,” said Richard Shusterman, Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities and director of the Center for Body, Mind and Culture. “It is a special pleasure to collaborate closely on this project with Ken Holloway, FAU’s Levenson Chair in Asian Studies and associate director of our Center.”
The presentations will include both ancient and modern aspects of Zen’s remarkable evolution, dealing with topics such as metaphysics, meditation, liturgy, doctrines of salvation, poetry, poverty, pedagogy and post-enlightenment practice. This is the 14th international conference of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture since its founding in 2007.
For more information visit https://www.fau.edu/artsandletters/bodymindculture/uconfern/.
The Journal of Somaesthetics: New Issue Now Available
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture is pleased to announce the publicatio of the new issue of The Journal of Somaesthetics volume 3, no.1 & 2, entitled Bodies of Belief/Bodies of Care.
You can access this issue at https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/JOS/issue/view/184 . We hope you enjoy its contents.
Call for Papers: Fall 2017 Bodies of Virtue: Asian Perspectives on Ethics and Somaesthetics
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture invites proposals for papers to be presented at a 2-day conference, November 8-9, 2017, at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.
Bodies are the primary platform where self-cultivation techniques develop in Asian cultures. Although proponents of somatic self-cultivation present body disciplines as fundamental instruments for liberation, others sought to twist bodies into tools for oppression and control. Not only considered as a tool for self-improvement in the path to ethical and spiritual progress, the body was contrastingly regarded as an abiding threat to morality and spirituality. How are we to understand and navigate these paradoxes? How are these different views represented not only in religious and philosophical texts but also in art and literature? Asian perspectives on embodiment, together with Asian somatic disciplines, are increasingly pervasive in Western culture. How does this transcultural travel take place? In what ways are the original ideas distorted, misunderstood, or enriched by their importation into new contexts? How do contemporary Asian cultures regard their own traditions and reconcile them with those of Western modernity? How do gender and sexuality studies provide new ways to understand how the microcosm of the body interfaces with the larger structures of religion, politics, and culture? The conference “Bodies of Virtue: Asian Perspectives on Ethics and Somaesthetics” will address these questions from the diverse disciplinary perspectives of religion, philosophy, history, the visual arts, literature, cultural and gender studies, and the interdisciplinary field of somaesthetics.
Selected papers may be developed for publication in The Journal of Somaesthetics (https://somaesthetics.aau.dk/index.php/JOS) or in an edited book based in part on the conference papers and published in the series Studies in Somaesthetics (https://brill.com/view/serial/SIS). Further information about the conference will be made available at /artsandletters/bodymindculture, where you can also consult the programs of our prior international conferences. Prospective speakers will be notified by mid August, 2017.
Kenneth Holloway Appointed as New Center Assistant Director
The Center of Body, Mind, and Culture is proud to announce the appointment of Professor Kenneth Holloway as the Center’s Associate Director. An Associate Professor in FAU’s excellent Department of History, he is also Levenson Professor of Asian Studies and Director of FAU’s Asian Studies Certificate Program. Ken has a very distinguished research profile that includes two books on early Chinese religious thought that were published by Oxford University Press. He moreover brings this historical scholarship into active theoretical and practical engagement with today’s global culture through his work on the contemporary project of Humanistic Buddhism, work that includes his serving on the Standing Committee of the United Nations NGO, Buddha’s Light International. Ken is very familiar with the Center, having served as its first Associate Director and then continuing as a regular research fellow. He is replacing Professor John Golden from the English Department, who left FAU earlier this academic year after several fine years of service to the Center, for which we are very grateful.
"Chinese Calligraphy: Natural and Somatic Roots"
Presented by FAU's Department of Visual Arts and Art History
Dr. Yanping Gao, Visiting Scholar at the Center of Body, Mind, and Culture, will be delivering the lecture "Chinese Calligraphy: Natural and Somatic Roots" as part of the Graduate Student Lecture series
Monday, October 24, 2016 12:00 pm-1:00 pm
Visual Arts Building (VA-53), Rm VA 105
Call for Papers EXTENSION: 2017 Bodies in the Streets
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture would like to announce that the Call for Papers deadline for the 2017 Conference, titled Bodies in the Streets: Somaesthetics of City Life, has been EXTENDED, to November 13, 2016. Please note that abstracts need be 250 words, and a current CV must be attached. Prospective speakers will be notified by early December, 2016. For more information about the conference, please see below.
2017 Bodies in the Streets: Somaesthetics of City Life Call for Papers
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture invites proposals for papers to be presented at a 2-day conference, January 26–27, 2017, at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.
Cities are defined by their complex network of busy streets and the diverse multitudes of busy people that populate and animate those streets through their physical presence and bodily actions. The human bodies and movements we find in the streets often differ dramatically – the elegant flâneur or strolling window-shopper versus the homeless beggars who make the pavement their bed, the crowds who fill the streets in protest and the patrolling law-enforcement officers who police them. If cities are shaped by human bodies, then those bodies are reciprocally shaped by the spaces, rhythms, and logics of city life. What are the somaesthetic qualities of urban living, its affordances and challenges (from better cultural and medical services to the cramped quarters and polluted air that many city dwellers must endure)? What are the somatic images of urban life? What paths or models of somaesthetic thinking can help us bring the rich diversity of city life into a more rewarding harmony that remains dynamically progressive? We invite abstracts that address these questions from the perspectives of the visual arts, literature, urbanism, philosophy, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, and the interdisciplinary field of somaesthetics.
Selected papers may be developed for publication in The Journal of Somaesthetics (https://journals.aau.dk/index.php/JOS) or in an edited book based on the conference papers.
Abstracts of 250 words, and a current CV, should be sent electronically as attachments, no later than October 15, 2016 to Richard Shusterman at bodymindculture@fau.edu. Please direct conference inquiries to the same address. Further information about the conference will be made available at /artsandletters/bodymindculture, where you can also consult the programs of our prior international conferences. Prospective speakers will be notified by mid November, 2016.
"Women with Character in Early Modern Spanish Theater"
Sigma Delta Pi-Rho Omicron presents a conference with Dr. Elizabeth Cruz Petersen
2:30-4 PM Tuesday, February 9, 2016
FAU Student Union Majestic Palm Room A
Click here to view poster
2016 Bodies of Care: Somaesthetics of Vulnerability Call for Papers
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture invites proposals for papers to be presented at a 2-day conference, January 28–29, 2016, at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.
Bodies are obviously the targets of one’s daily care in terms of personal hygiene, grooming, exercise, and proper nourishment. They are also objects of care in the sense of worry or concern, since we all suffer illness and death through our bodies. However, the sentient, purposive, active body or soma is also a subjectivity that examines and cares for the body as object, whether it be one’s own body or the bodies of others who one wants to help or comfort. We all need such curative help or comfort at some point in our lives; and some people devote their professional and personal lives to giving such care. Bodies need and give care in many ways and for many reasons: to overcome illness and disability, to address and alleviate dependence, to learn new skills and remedy bad habits, to inspire greater confidence for personal flourishing and greater social betterment. This conference will examine the wide range of somatic conditions that require care and the variety of somatic methods of providing such care, while exploring how these conditions and methods are represented in cultural theory, health and wellness studies, literature, and the arts.
Selected papers may be developed for publication in The Journal of Somaesthetics (https://somaesthetics.wordpress.com/) or in an edited book based on the conference papers.
Abstracts of 250 words, and a current CV, should be sent electronically as attachments, no later than October 15, 2015, to Richard Shusterman at bodymindculture@fau.edu. Please direct conference inquiries to the same address. Further information about the conference will be made available at /artsandletters/bodymindculture, where you can also consult the programs of our prior international conferences. Prospective speakers will be notified by mid-November, 2015.
2015 Bodies of Belief: Somaesthetics of Faith and Protest Call for Papers
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture invites proposals for papers to be presented at a 3-day conference, January 29–31, 2015, at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.
Human bodies are shaped not only by their genetic endowment but also by the belief systems of the cultures in which they develop and function. Such belief systems vary from unarticulated background assumptions to ritualized practices and explicit doctrines or even to formulated laws enacted and enforced by social institutions. Likewise, belief’s somatic shaping ranges widely from the stylization of external appearance (including clothing and ornamentation) to the structuring of bodily actions and comportment (including essential practices like eating) and even to inner modes of affect (which are felt somatically). The beliefs that the human soma embodies and expresses are not confined to established social norms; they also include items of faith and commitment that are individualistic, nonconformist, or even antagonistic to the cultural mainstream. More than a mere instrument of compliance or worship, the soma is also a site and weapon of protest. Our conference will explore the ways through which beliefs and their corresponding values are embodied and somatically contested in such cultural fields as religion, politics, ethics, and the arts. How are beliefs acted upon or counter-acted by bodies in these fields? How do artistic or literary representations reflect on such bodily actions or themselves participate in these actions?
Selected papers may be developed for publication in The Journal of Somaesthetics (https://somaesthetics.aau.dk/index.php/JOS/ ) or in a volume based on the conference papers.
Abstracts of 250 words, and a current CV, should be sent electronically as attachments, no later than October 20, 2014, to Richard Shusterman at bodymindculture@fau.edu. Please direct conference inquiries to the same address. Further information about the conference will be made available at /artsandletters/bodymindculture, where you can also consult the programs of our prior international conferences. Prospective speakers will be notified by mid-November, 2014.
2014 Mindful Body in the Arts of Eating Call for Papers
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture invites proposals for papers to be presented at a 3-day conference, January 23–25, 2014, at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.
Eating is an essential activity for human life, and without such life there is no thought, no theory, no art. While eating is a need, knowing how to eat is often said to be an art that requires intelligence, knowledge, and imaginative creativity. As another maxim puts it: Animals feed; humans eat; and the wise know how to eat. What considerations guide our eating? How could we make them more intelligent and rewarding? A multitude of diverse factors affect our forms of eating and our choice of food: economic, medical, gustatory, ethical, social, and aesthetic. How do we balance them for a more mindful, healthier, more gratifying art of eating?
This conference will explore the art of eating by considering the different sciences and arts that examine and guide the ways we eat and drink. These include the various fields that impact gastronomical theory (from health sciences and cooking to agriculture and economics) and fields that concern the ways food and eating are represented in literature, social theory, and the arts.
Abstracts of 250 words, and a current CV, should be sent electronically as attachments, no later than October 15, 2013, to Richard Shusterman at bodymindculture@fau.edu. Please direct conference inquiries to the same address. Further information about the conference will be made available at /artsandletters/bodymindculture, where you can also consult the programs of our prior international conferences. Prospective speakers will be notified by November 15, 2013.
2013 Somaesthetics Essay Prize Competition Call for Papers
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture at Florida Atlantic University is pleased to announce its second annual Somaesthetics Essay Prize competition. The award for the 2013 prize will be $500. Essays should be academic in style and focus on the interdisciplinary field of somaesthetics from such perspectives as philosophy, aesthetics, art history and theory, literary and cultural studies, dance, design, music, theatre, cognitive science, gender and sexuality studies, sports, movement, and health studies.
Submissions should be between 6,000 and 9,000 words in length including notes and references, and should be emailed in Word format to bodymindculture@fau.edu. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2013, and the prize winner will be announced in December 2013. Essays will be evaluated by an interdisciplinary panel of judges appointed by the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture.
2012 Somaesthetics Essay Prize Winner
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture at Florida, Atlantic University is pleased to announce the winners of the 2012 Somesthetics Essay Prize competition. Among many excellent submissions, two outstanding essays will share the prize. "Performing the Renaissance Body and Mind: Somaesthetic Style and Devotional Practice at the Sacro Monte di Varallo," by Allie Terry-Fritsch (Bowling Green State University USA) investigates the somaesthetic dimensions of a fifteenth-century simulation of the Holy Land in northern Italy. The meticulously researched essay vividly conveys the ways that techniques of bodily experience intersected with devotional practices in Italian Renaissance culture. "Somaesthetics as a Discipline Between Pragmatist Philosophy and Philosophical Anthropology," by Salvatore Tedesco (Palermo University, Italy) engages in a thorough and nuanced analysis of the relations between somaesthetics and the history of aesthetic theory since Alexander Baumgarten, before going on to consider somaesthetics' affinities and differences with twentieth-century philosophical anthropology. Tedesco's essay had been published in a special issue of Pragmatism Today devoted to somaesthetics:"Affect, Aesthetics, and the Body: Varieties of Somaesthetics," vol. 3 no.2 (winter 2012) accessible via http://www.pragmatismtoday.eu/index.php?id=2012winter2. We congratulate both winners for their excellent work. A call for submissions to the Somaesthetics Essay Prize for 2013 is forthcoming.
Special Documentary Screening and Master Class
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture and the School for Communications is happy to present the screening of the documentary film LAWNSWOOD GARDENS, followed by a master class on documentary filmmaking about philosophical subjects by the film’s director, Pawel Kuczynski. The screening will be held on Monday, February 18th at 2pm in Room 107 of building CU 97, where the Living Room Theater is housed. Enter from Democracy Plaza (the covered area next to the atrium) using the double doors between the poster cases. The master class (consisting of short lecture followed by a Question and Answer session) will follow the screening. There is no charge for either event but seating is limited and reservations are encouraged. To reserve a seat please just send an email to bodymindculture@fau.edu
Lawnswood Gardens is a documentary portrait of Zygmunt Bauman (1924- ), the world-renowned social theorist and philosopher who was driven out of Poland by an anti-semitic campaign engineered by the Communist government in 1968 and then became Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds, England. A central theme in his work is the status of the stranger and the challenge that strangers pose to society’s sense of order. He develops this idea in his most famous book, Modernity and the Holocaust (1989). Bauman is also famous for his writings on postmodernism and consumerism and his concept of "liquid modernity." Lawnswood Gardens is based on the filmmaker’s four-day long visit at Bauman’s home and provides a moving and provocative glimpse of the philosopher’s life as well as his ideas.
Pawel Kuczynski is a graduate of the famous Lodz Film Academy (whose famous alumni include Roman Polanski, Andrzej Wajda, and Krzysztof Kieślowski) and specializes in documentary films about intellectuals and philosophical topics. Currently based in Warsaw, he previously worked many years in Hollywood. This February he is a visiting scholar at the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture of the Dorothy F. Schmidt, College of Arts and Letters, where he working on a new film related to research being done at the Center.
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture is grateful to the School of Communications for its collaboration in this double-event to mark the visit of Pawel Kuczynski, which also enjoys the collaboration of the Philosophy Club, the English Graduate Student Society, and the Commercial Music program.
2013 Body and Technology: Instruments of Somaesthetics Conference Press Release
FAU’s Center for Body, Mind and Culture Presents
‘Body and Technology: Instruments of Somaesthetics’
BOCA RATON, Fla. (January 7 , 2013) – The Center for Body, Mind and Culture in Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters is hosting an international conference titled "Body and Technology: Instruments of Somaesthetics" on Thursday, Jan. 24 and Friday, Jan. 25, 2013 in the Arts and Humanities Building, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus.
"I am delighted that the Center is organizing this important international and transdisciplinary conference which highlights the richly complex interaction between body and technology," said Richard Shusterman, Ph.D., Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities and director of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture. "Too often our society opposes the living body to the tools of technology, forgetting that the body is itself our tool of tools; just as our culture too often contrasts technology and the arts, forgetting that they share a common creative source and etymological history – techne being the Greek word for art. Here at the Center, we aim to integrate scientific, humanistic, and artistic research to promote ways that enrich our somaesthetic understanding and thus improve the quality of our embodied experience."
Regarding the body as a sentient soma rather than as a merely material machine, this conference will examine the complex relationship between body and technology, exploring how the body, as our basic instrument for living, has been reshaped by the technologies it has developed – changing our somatic habits through which we experience and act in the world while also altering the body through various forms of mechanical or chemical enhancement.
Conference presenters include distinguished experts and academics from France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Australia, Canada, England, Ireland and China, as well as from American universities such as the University of Virginia, Bucknell University and the University of Florida. Their presentations feature the somatic role and impact of technologies of human-computer interaction, the application of somatic-related technologies to contemporary visual and musical arts, biotechnologies of health, wellness, athletics and the impact of technology on how the body is treated in other practices and environments, including the legal courtroom.
This is the eighth international conference of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture since its establishment in 2007.
There is no conference registration fee, however advanced registration is required. To register, or for more information, visit www.fau.edu/artsandletters/bodymindculture/Conferences.php, or email bodymindculture@fau.edu.
2013 Body and Technology: Instruments of Somaesthetics Conference Call For Papers
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture invites proposals for papers to be presented at a 3-day conference, January 24-26, 2013, at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton.
The human body is our basic instrument for life, the basis for the creation and use of all our other tools or technologies. As the body has shaped technology, so technology is increasingly reshaping the body: not only by reshaping our bodily habits through which we experience and act in the world but also through the incorporation of prosthetic devices and drug enhancements. Regarding the body as a sensitive sentient soma, rather than as a merely material machine, this conference rethinks the relationship between body and technology, focusing on such topics as human-computer interaction, robotics, medical and fitness technologies, technology and the environment, and technologies of the arts. We welcome papers from the perspectives of both the sciences and the humanities.
Abstracts of 250 words, and a current CV, should be sent electronically as attachments, no later than October 1, 2012, to Richard Shusterman at bodymindculture@fau.edu
Please direct conference inquiries to the same address. Further information about the conference will be made available at /artsandletters/bodymindculture, where you can also consult the programs of our prior international conferences. Prospective speakers will be notified by November 8, 2012.
Somaesthetics Essay Prize Contest
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture at Florida Atlantic University is pleased to announce its first annual Somaesthetics Essay Prize competition. The award for the 2012 prize will be $500. Essays should be academic in style and focus on the interdisciplinary field of somaesthetics from such perspectives as philosophy, aesthetics, art history and theory, literary and cultural studies, dance, design, music, theatre, cognitive science, gender and sexuality studies, sports, movement, and health studies. The prize essay will be recommended for publication in an upcoming special issue of the philosophical journal Pragmatism Today on somaesthetics.
Submissions should be between 6,000 and 9,000 words in length, including notes and references, and should be e-mailed in Word format to bodymindculture@fau.edu. The deadline for submission of essays is September 15, 2012, and the prize winner will be announced in December 2012. Essays will be evaluated by an interdisciplinary panel of judges appointed by the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture.
Citation Style: Essays should follow the guidelines specified in the Chicago Manual of Style.
Bibliographies on Somaesthetics: Several lists of texts on somaesthetics can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/somaesthetics/home/somaesthetics-texts.
The Université Paris 1 ‒ Panthéon Sorbonne held a one-day conference, on May 25th, 2012, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Richard Shusterman’s Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art. To accompany the conference and trace the impact of Shusterman’s work not only in aesthetics, philosophy, and the human sciences but also in contemporary art, the Sorbonne will also be organizing an art show.
This twofold project is organized by the Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Faculty of Arts Plastiques et Sciences de l’Art (UMR ACTE, Arts ‒ Créations ‒ Théories ‒ Esthétiques). French institutional partners in the project include the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Faculty of Philosophy (Equipe de recherche Philosophies Contemporaines) and the Ecole Normale Supérieure d’Ulm: Centre International de Recherches en Philosophie, Lettres, Savoirs. The project is also supported by other international partners: Peking University’s Center for Aesthetics and Aesthetic Education; China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing) and Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters.
For more information, click here.
Previous Conferences and Programs:
Spring 2012
The Center for Body, Mind and Culture hosted Mindful Body in Healing and the Arts January 19-20, 2012 at FAU in Boca Raton. The keynote lecture, given by Professor Anne Harrington of Harvard University, was entitled "The Cure Within". Regarding the body as sentient, purposive subjectivity (rather than mere physical flesh), the conference focused on ways that somatic mindfulness can contribute to health, healing, and aesthetic experience. Presentations dealt with disciplines of mindful body consciousness (Asian and Western) and their applications in the areas of wellness, fitness, and the arts.
Fall 2010
The Center for Body, Mind and Culture and the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies hosted a two-day conference, December 2nd and 3rd, at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton entitled "Bodies of Art." The keynote speaker was the internationally acclaimed artist ORLAN. In conjunction with ORLAN’s participation as a keynote speaker in the "Bodies of Art" symposium at FAU, the University Galleries presented ORLAN Resurfacing: Surgery-Performance Photos and Recent Works, from December 1, 2010 to January 22, 2011 in the Schmidt Center Gallery Public Space. For more information on this conference including the individual titles and abstracts of each presentation, click here.
Spring 2010
Dr. Wojciech Malecki, a visiting scholar at the Center in Spring 2010, gave a paper "Borat, Multicultural Implications" at Webster University.
Ms. Hyijin Lee, Visiting Scholar at FAU’s Center for Body, Mind, and Culture (and doctoral student of Tokyo University) was appointed as a Research Fellow at the Lifelong Learning and Human Resources Development Institute of Soongsil University’s College of Education, one of Korea’s main centers for research in education, located in Seoul.
The Departments of English and Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature Present "Between Post-communism and Post-colonialism: Literary Studies in Central/Eastern Europe," a lecture by Dr. Wojciech Malecki, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Philology, the University of Wroclaw, Poland. Free and open to the public.
The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture and the French Program in the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton Campus hosted a Conference on French Cultures of Embodiment 25-27 March 2010.
Associate Updates, 2009
On Sunday, October 4, 2009 Professor Kenneth Holloway gave a presentation on his book Guodian The Newly Discovered Seeds of Chinese Religious and Political Philosophy at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach. For more information click here.
Dr. Jane Caputi contributed "Character Assassinations: Hate Messages in Election 2008 Commercial Paraphernalia" to the Denver University Law Review special issue on the historic election of President Barack Obama and participated in the NEH Summer Seminar, "A Fierce Green Fire: The Environmental Philosophy of Aldo Leopold," in Prescott, AZ, June 20- July 18. Professor Caputi was also awarded the Green Consciousness: Reattachment to the Mother/Earth grant of $50,000.00 from the Frederick Leonhardt Foundation, to produce an educational film.
Spring 2009
The Center will host a Conference on Art and Ritual in Asian Cultures, March 20-21, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton Florida. To view the conference web page click here.
Center Associate Director Dr. Kenneth Holloway's new book Guodian The Newly Discovered Seeds of Chinese Religious and Political Philosophy was published by Oxford University Press in January.
Center Director Dr. Richard Shusterman received a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship for the Summer of 2009.
"Celebration of China" Friday, February 13, 2009 Come and meet our two Visiting Chinese Scholars At the Center Dr. Pang Fei, Professor of Chinese Aesthetics at Zhejiang University of Technology and Gong Ming a Doctoral student in Literary Theory at Peking University and hear about the China-related research books from Center Fellows Professor Wenying Xu ( English), author of Eating Identities: Reading Food in Asian American Literature, University of Hawaii Press (2008) and Professor Ken Holloway ( History), author of Guodian The Newly Discovered Seeds of Chinese Religious and Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press (2009).
Fall 2008
The Center hosted an international conference Bodies in Motion: Explorations in Perception and Performance in Boca Raton, December 4-6, 2008. To view the conference web page click here.
During the fall semester the Center hosted three presentations as part of the Coffee Colloquium series:
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 Professor Oliver Buckton ( English) presented: "Robert Louis Stevenson, William Gladstone, and the Politics of Late-Victorian Masculinity."
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 Professor Michael Horswell (Languages and Linguistics) spoke about: "Re-writing Imperial Subjects of Treason: Amazons and Cañaris in Spanish Transatlantic Literature."
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 Professor Benno Lowe ( History) discussed: "Commonwealth and Reformation: Protestantism and the Politics of Religious Change in the Gloucester Vale (1350-1560)."
Spring 2008
The Center hosted two international scholars this semester:
Hans-Peter Krueger, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Potsdam, was here for two weeks in March on a Transcoop Humboldt Foundation Grant to participate in collaborative research on embodiment.
Professor Kacper Bartczak, a poet, critic, and scholar of American studies at the University of Lodz and Academy of Management in Lodz, visited FAU from 3/18-6/15. A grant from the Kosciuszko Foundation funded his visit. While here Professor Bartczak conducted research on American poetics and its relationship to pragmatist philosophy.
Check the events page for information about a conference the Center hosted for the scholars.
2008 Publications
Dr. Wenying Xu has published a new book titled, Eating Identities: Reading Food in Asian American Literature . The book is available through UH Press and Amazon.com. Or click here for the order form.
Dr. Richard Shusterman has published a new book titled, Body Consciousness: A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics . The book is available through Cambridge University Press and Amazon.com.
Associate Updates, 2008
In addition to publishing a new book, Eating Identities: Reading Food in Asian American Literature (April 2008), Dr. Wenying Xu has recently appeared as a co-guest editor for Multiethnic Literatures and Food: A MELUS Special Issue (Winter 2007) and published an article in Cultural Critique titled, "Masculinity, Food, and Appetite in Frank Chin's Donald Duk and 'The Eat and Run Midnight People'" (Spring 2007).
Dr. Richard Shusterman has just published Body Consciousness: A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics (January 2008). He also contributed "Entertainment Value: Intrinsic, Instrumental, and Transactional" to a collection titled, Beyond Price: Value in Culture, Economics, and the Arts (2008), and published articles in Common Knowledge (Spring-Fall 2007), Recherches en Esthétique (October 2007), and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (Winter 2007). Dr. Shusterman's new research has recently been featured in articles and interviews in Le Monde , Le Point , Art Press , Les Inrockuptibles , and in a radio interview on France Culture . In May, he will be speaking at the Moderna Museet.
Dr. Jane Caputi's documentary, The Pornography of Everyday Life , has been screening around the country at universities and conferences, as well as at the National Women's Studies Association Film Series. Dr. Caputi has also recently published articles in Ethics and the Environment ("Green Consciousness: Earth Based Myth and Meaning in Shrek" in Fall/Winter 2007) and The Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture ("Overkill: Why Excess and Conflict are both Sexy and Sacred" in Winter 2007).
Fall 2007
Press Release: Florida Atlantic University and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Enter into International Collaboration Agreement. Universities to work on joint research projects, publications, seminars and exchange programs.
BOCA RATON, FL (November 19, 2007) – Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and the Université Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne (Sorbonne) recently signed an agreement of collaboration in research and teaching to explore different teaching and research programs with the aim of enhancing the knowledge and skills of the academic staff and to improve the educational options of students at both universities. Collaboration efforts will include joint research projects, colloquia and seminars, joint publications, teaching and research staff exchanges, and student exchange programs. The primary focus of study will be in aesthetics, the fine arts, and the philosophy and criticism of the arts.
"The Sorbonne is one of Europe’s most important centers of research and teaching with a long and prestigious tradition of influence in the field of culture," said Dr. Richard Shusterman, the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters at FAU. "I have had the pleasure of working with colleagues at the Sorbonne, and participating in research and teaching programs there. We are delighted that this agreement will formalize and deepen our special relationship and mutual commitment to research and teaching in the arts and the humanities."
Professor Marc Jimenez, director of the Laboratory of Theoretical and Applied Aesthetics at the Sorbonne, said, "My research center is very happy to see the establishment of this agreement with FAU that will enable fruitful exchanges in research and teaching, and build on the special relationship which we already have with Professor Shusterman, who has contributed significantly to the dialogue between French and American philosophy through his numerous publications in French and his frequent lectures in Paris."
In what will be the first of a series of colloquia and seminars involving the Sorbonne and France, Shusterman and the Center for Body, Mind and Culture, in cooperation with the cultural service of the French Consulate of Miami/French Embassy of the United States, will be hosting a bilingual conference entitled, "French Philosophy and Contemporary Art," December 3-4 at FAU’s Boca Raton campus.
The conference will include leading French philosophers, critics and artists including representatives from the Sorbonne and other important institutions, along with internationally distinguished scholars and artists from elsewhere in Europe and North America. The event provides a timely background to the annual Miami-Basel international festival of contemporary art which opens this year on December 6.
"International collaboration is especially important for studying the fields of art and culture in today’s multicultural world of rapid change," said Professor Dominique Chateau, past director of the Doctoral School of Arts and Art Sciences at the Sorbonne who helped initiate the agreement with FAU and the Sorbonne. Shusterman was appointed earlier as a full member of this Doctoral School of Arts.
The Center for Body, Mind and Culture is the initiative of Shusterman, and it deploys the college’s wide-ranging disciplinary perspectives on body, mind and culture – ranging from philosophy and history, through social, communicational and literary studies, to the performing and plastic arts. The center is an interdisciplinary initiative dedicated to promoting research, programming and teaching concerning the body-mind-culture nexus. Through collaborative networks within FAU and external organizations, the center is engaged not only in scholarly research and teaching, but also pursues a mission of public outreach serving diverse populations in the South Florida region who have a strong interest in topics relating to the body-mind-culture nexus. These topics include health and illness, fitness and disability, body image in art and culture, fashion, cosmetics, athletics, nutrition, sexuality and gender, sensory motor learning and therapies, performing arts, martial arts, spirituality and meditation and other body-mind disciplines (Western and non-Western). The center’s associate director is Dr. Kenneth W. Holloway, Levenson Professor of Asian Studies.
For more information about the center and upcoming events visit www.fau.edu/artsandletters/bodymindculture or call 561-297-0851.
Previous News
The Center hosted the Revisiting the French Connection conference on French Philosophy and Contemporary Art. This international, bilingual conference took place on December 3-4, 2007. For more information, click (for English) ou cliquer (pour français).
On November 27, from 4-5 PM, the Center featured William F. Dietrich Eminent Scholar and Professor of Philosophy, Lester Embree at a Coffee Colloquium in AH 108. For more information about this free event, visit the events page.
The Center began a new series of Coffee Colloquiums with poet Susan Mitchell, Mary Blossom Lee Chair in FAU's English Department. For more information, visit our events page.
Programs include seminars and conferences with visiting speakers from outside the FAU committee and a regular monthly coffee colloquium featuring talks by FAU faculty. If you would like to speak at our coffee colloquium, please contact us. For more details on already scheduled events, see our events page.
Center member and Visiting Assistant Professor in Dance, Clarence Brooks was the 2006 recipient of the Clyde Fyfe Award for Performing Artists. Given by the Palm Beach County Cultural Council, the award recognizes the artistic development and community service of an emerging Palm Beach County performing artist whose life and work emulate those of the late Clyde Fyfe, the Palm Beach County impresario and arts leader.
Center Member and Professor Women’s Studies and Communications, Jane Caputi has completed a film entitled The Pornography of Everyday Life which will be distributed by Berkeley Media.
Center Director Richard Shusterman gave the keynote Kneller Lecture at the annual conference of the Philosophy of Education Society at Atlanta in March. He also directed a seminar at the Fulbright Summer Institute in Moscow in June (the other American seminar Director was Michael Holquist, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Literature at Yale, and the current President of the MLA). In July Professor Shusterman gave an invited plenary lecture at the 14 International Congress of Aesthetics in Turkey.
Center member and Associate Professor of English, Wenying Xu has recently signed a contract with Hawai’i University Press for her new book Eating Identities: Reading Food in Asian American Literature.