Leadership and Support

Because of his unique expertise and reputation in the disciplines emphasized in the Design, Aesthetics, and the Arts track, Richard Shusterman has been named Academic Program Head. Dr. Shusterman is currently the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters’ Eminent Scholar in the Humanities. Educated in Jerusalem and at Oxford University, he was chair of the Temple University Philosophy Department before coming to FAU in 2005. He has held academic posts in Paris, Berlin, and Hiroshima and has won Fulbright and NEH Fellowships. He is widely known as the creator of the field of somaesthetics in philosophy and has published widely and influentially in many fields including philosophy, aesthetics, culture, language, identity and embodiment. His most recent book is Ars Erotica: Sex and Somaesthetics in the Classical Arts of Love (Cambridge, 2022). Previous widely-translated books include TS Eliot and the Philosophy of Criticism (Columbia), Practicing Philosophy (Routledge), Performing Live (Cornell), Surface and Depth (Cornell), Pragmatist Aesthetics (Blackwell), and Body Consciousness (Cambridge). He has also published essays in The Nation, The Chronicle of Higher Education and various art reviews and catalogues. He directs the FAU Center for Body, Mind, and Culture, which delivers a Colloquia series each year. His presence at FAU, and support for the DAA track, is made possible, in part, by the Barbara Schmidt Family Foundation.

To learn more about the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture, click here.