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MEDIA CONTACTS: Polly Burks
561-297-2595, pburks@fau.edu or
Stacia Smith
561-297-2971, ssmith@fau.edu
FAU Lecture Focuses on the Importance of the
Mind-Body Connection
BOCA RATON, FL (March 30, 2005) - Florida Atlantic University's Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters presents "Thinking through the Body: Educating for the Humanities," an inaugural lecture by Richard Shusterman, the recently appointed Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities, on Wednesday, April 6 at 4 p.m. The lecture will take place in the Live Oak Pavilion of the University Center on FAU's Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road. The lecture and reception following the event are free and open to the public.
Shusterman will provide an introduction to "somaesthetics," an interdisciplinary field of study focusing on embodiment, mind and culture. Shusterman, the originator of this field of study, explains that intellectuals sometimes take the body for granted because they are so interested in the life of the mind. His research shows the importance of body awareness for better understanding of the arts and humanities and more generally for improving our art of living. Shusterman's academic research on body-mind is also informed by his work as a professional practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method, a discipline of body-mind attunement.
A graduate of Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Oxford University, England, Shusterman came to FAU from Temple University where he was chair of the Philosophy Department. Although most of his career has been focused on philosophy, he has held appointments in other disciplines in the humanities. In Israel, he taught in the comparative literature department and also lectured on art theory at Jerusalem's Bezalel Art Academy. For 10 years, Shusterman has been a visiting professor at the interdisciplinary department of liberal studies at the graduate faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York. In Paris, he was an associate of the École des Hautes Études in Sciences Sociales, and in Berlin, he was a Fulbright Professor in both philosophy and American studies. Shusterman is the author of several influential books that have been widely translated. His Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art, has been published in twelve foreign languages.
For more information about the lecture, call 561-297-0155.
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