Description: Drawing together theory and advanced empirical research from a variety of disciplines, this book offers a new multidisciplinary perspective on human interaction. It conceives of the living body in terms of its interaction with other bodies, and its openness to and engagement with the material and cultural world.
Review Quotes: "In traditional accounts of the body, the body was a delivery system for the mind. The mind told the body what to do and the body did it. In opposition to this, a range of 20th-century thinkers studied the body not as a delivery system but as an agent--for instance, as the seat of emotions or how posture shapes self-image or how the shape of the body impacts the sense of time and so on. This collection pushes those studies of embodiment considerably further. It examines how the interaction of multiple bodies, coordinating their movements in reciprocal ways, structures who people are...Including contributions from psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, and linguists (among others), this book is filled with exciting ideas that expand the sense of what it means to be human, and it reveals a dimension of self not commonly noticed." --J. F. Richeimer, Kenyon College, Choice
"While some readers will doubtless find value in individual chapters, this is that rare kind of collection that is worth reading in its entirety as it makes a cohesive argument throughout. Scholars of embodied interaction, and social interaction in general, should pay close attention to how the editors of and contributors to this volume have worked towards an integrated framework." -- Dr. Donald Everhart, AMDA College of the Performing Arts, Symbolic Interaction