FAU Presents ‘Atmospheres of the Spiritual: Somaesthetic Explorations’

Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Body, Mind, and Culture in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters will present an in-person international conference, “Atmospheres of the Spiritual: Somaesthetic Explorations,” on Thursday, Dec. 4 and Friday, Dec. 5, at 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. 

This conference develops the center’s study of the somaesthetics of atmosphere that investigates atmosphere as an elusive but significant transformational force that works both outside and inside the individual’s body.

“Atmosphere is normally regarded as something outside and surrounding a person or group, whereas our somaesthetic perspective explores the somatic internalization of atmosphere and the experiential effects of its somaesthetic inner-outer transactions,” said Richard Shusterman, Ph.D., the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in the Humanities, FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters.

“Our premise is that rather than being only on the outside, atmospheres feel like they touch us from the inside yet are experientially shared, just as subjective moods resonate and pervade the atmosphere of a place or situation. In this conference we examine the various atmospheres that contribute to spiritual phenomena and our sense of the sacred.”

The conference will include presentations from an international group of scholars from Europe, East Asia and America, and it builds on last year’s conference on atmosphere, which received a grant from the Burroughs Welcome Fund as well as generous funding from the Schmidt Family Foundation.

“We at the center are deeply grateful to the Schmidt Family Foundation for their continuing support of all the center’s activities,” Shusterman said.

The conference is open to the public and free of cost, but space is limited, and registration is required. This is the 21st international conference of the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture since its founding in 2007.

Program and access details for the conference can be found at fau.edu/artsandletters/bodymindculture/uconfern

For more information about the center, visit fau.edu/artsandletters/bodymindculture