Mission

The Center for Body, Mind, and Culture: Philosophy and Goals

The Center for Body, Mind and Culture, situated in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters is an interdisciplinary initiative dedicated to promoting research, programming, and teaching of topics concerning the body-mind-culture nexus. It was founded by Richard Shusterman, the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities in 2006.

The premise of the Center is that body, mind, and culture are not independent entities but rather essentially interdependent. They therefore need to be studied in terms of their interrelations, and that study is best pursued through interdisciplinary efforts. Somaesthetics provides a guiding theoretical framework for inquiry and creative work in the nexus of body, mind, and culture, and the Center is associated with two important publication venues that publish such research, The Journal of Somaesthetics (published by Aalborg University Press) and the book series, Studies in Somaesthetics (published by Brill).

The Center will draw on and advance the diverse disciplines of the College of Arts and Letters dealing with the connections between body, mind, and culture that range from philosophy and history, through communicational and literary studies, and social sciences, to the performing and plastic arts. The Center is thus committed to forging strong links to these diverse disciplines and departments of the College but is also interested in collaboration with other Colleges at FAU and with institutions beyond the FAU community.

The goals of the center include:

• Promoting and coordinating research on the nexus of body-mind-culture within the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and beyond, through scholarly publications and other means.

• Providing encouragement and guidance in the College for teaching and curricular development within this area of research.

• Initiating, organizing, and supporting programming for conferences, lectures, performances, and workshops on topics relating to body, mind, and culture.

• Recruiting and supporting graduate students who are interested in doing work related to the Center’s areas of interest. Please click here for information regarding the Dorothy F. Schmidt Doctoral Fellowship in Somaesthetics. 

• Exploring collaborative research and programming with other universities and institutions concerned with body, mind, and culture.

• Planning and implementing projects of public outreach to serve diverse populations in the region served by FAU who have a strong interest in issues concerning the connections of body, mind, and culture.