Investigating Somatic Consciousness: Beginning with Three Methodologies

Consciousness is associated most readily with the mind, the psyche, and the
psychological sciences, yet many contemporary approaches to understanding
experience acknowledge that consciousness is necessarily embodied. Three
methodological approaches to consciousness that accept this premise will be
the focus of our 2014 conference.

From the phenomenological primacy of sensation, touch, and movement in
Aristotle, the James-Lange theory of a bodily basis for the emotions, and
Merleau-Ponty's embodied phenomenology of perception, to Shusterman's
somaesthetics, Noë’s enactivism and Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis,
we've come a long way in our understanding of the role of the body in
experience, and one of the main things we've learnt is that the body isn't
merely a vehicle for the mind; it is an essential aspect of our real,
pre-reflective, intentional sensuous being.

Our invited speakers will provide theoretical and experiential perspectives
on the nature of somatic consciousness from the point of view of:

Mindfulness and Therapy: Paul Grossman & Eva Kreikenbaum

Alexander Technique: Alex Farkas & Michal Segal

Focusing: Donata Schoeller & Robert Lee.

We note that there are at least two distinct approaches to understanding
somatic consciousness:  i) awareness of the body, for example, sensation,
interoception, dance, bodywork, and so on, and ii) the constitutive role of
the body/bodily processes in conscious experience: awareness through the
body, including 'embodiment', embodied cognition, and phenomenology, and we
invite disciplinary and trans-disciplinary proposals on these approaches for
papers, symposia, experiential sessions, posters or artwork.

The conference is open to researchers from all disciplines, with reduced
rates for BPS/CEP members and students.

Enquiries

Please email Bryony Pierce ([email protected]) if you have any
conference questions.

On behalf of the conference committee,

Susan Stuart, University of Glasgow (Chair)
Bryony Pierce, University of Bristol
Emily Hammond, University of Exeter
Nik Darshane, University of Cambridge