Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Humanities and Social Science - Department of General Pedagogy

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• Bachelor Erziehungswissenschaften

• Master Erziehungswissenschaften

Bachelor Erziehungswissenschaften

Master Erziehungswissenschaften

Transformation, Transgression, Transposition. On repetition within education and learning

In the last two decades, we have been witnessing a paradigmatic turn in cognitive sciences, social sciences, and the humanities: the so-called embodied cognition (EC). This theory derives from an original and unexpected milieu constituted by phenomenology, complex system theory and contemplative tradition (in particular Buddhism and mindfulness meditation). EC reframes the “body-mind problem” and it offers a new perspective on crucial concepts such as ‘mind’, ‘cognition’, ‘knowledge’, and ‘learning’. Differently from behavioral and computational approaches, the EC reconsiders the importance of subjective experience (first-person perspective) and the role that the lived body (Leib) plays in it. We will look at some main topics, e.g. Leib, Kӧrper, embodied learning, contemplative education – and we will critically discuss the convergence of EC and education as a new area of theoretical, empirical, and applicative research in educational science. In particular, we will see: The background of the embodied theory in education. Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Hubert Dreyfus: phenomenology of perception, body-as-object and body-as-subject, intelligence without representation. How the body shapes the mind. Phenomenological and neurocognitive aspects of the body-mind connection. Educational aspects of body-mind practices (mindfulness meditation, yoga and tai chi): why and how to teach them in educational contexts? What is mindfulness meditation and how does it work in educational contexts? Contemplative Education Programs: A critical analysis. Fitness vs. Wellbeing: from Hedonism to Eudaimonia.

• The course will include frontal teaching, interactive discussion, case studies, group’s work, and experiential training.

Transformation, Transgression, Transposition. On repetition within education and learning

Change, transformation, transgression and transposition are prominent metaphors to describe changes in habitus, of the self or of self-relations. Within educational studies, different models of transformation (Koller), transgression (Foucault and Butler) and transposition (Mersch) try to describe these processes. In this lecture, these processes will also be concidered in a perspective of repetition within education. Phenomenological and discourse-analytical perspectives will be used to reflect on the problem of habits, norms, normification, knowledge and knowing-how in repetition. Thereby, in the wake of the body turn, body and lived body shift in focus as media of education.

Learning - Bildung - Practicing

Learning, Bildung and practicing are key terms and metaphors, which are not clearly defined in consensual way within educational studies. A heterogenous field of perspectives on these phenomena makes it hard to distinguish one from another. Other disciplines (such as psychology, neuro-biology etc.) offer even more concepts and definitions. In this seminar, we will focus on practices of learning, Bildung and practicing and try to find out how they are connected through notions of time, continuity and discontinuity.

Lived body and body - educational and social theoretical perspectives

The lived body is present and palpable – as a public, displayed, symbolic, shaped and enticed body it is encountered everywhere. It is object of medial, biotechnical and cultural practices – from enhancement and well being to athletic training and spiritual meditation. Furthermore, it has been given attention to the body in the social sciences in the course of the body turn. Recently, the lived body is recognised within gender studies and post-feminism as well as the cognitive and medical sciences. In philosophy, bodily images assuming the submission of the body to reason can be found from Plato to Christianity, Descartes and Kant. The instrumentalization of the lived body within science and culture is succeeding Descartes’ geometricalisation of nature in modern times. Within pedagogy, the commissioning of the lived body commences in manifold theories, practices and institutions. It becomes manifest in the neglect of perspectives of the lived body within pedagogy and for a long time represented the marginalisation, disciplining and normalisation of the lived body. Contrary to this notion of the body, Phenomenology developed a precise understanding of the term lived body (Leib) in the early 20th century by redefining the relation of lived body and thinking with a non- dualistic theory. In Phenomenology, diverse applications of the lived body are accounted for from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Fink, Plessner, Levinas, Waldenfels and Within the phenomenological educational sciences, a lived body oriented pedagogy has been developed (Fink, Meyer-Drawe, van Manen, Brinkmann).