ABSTRACT

In What a Body Can Do, Ben Spatz develops, for the first time, a rigorous theory of embodied technique as knowledge. He argues that viewing technique as both training and research has much to offer current debates over the role of practice in the university, including the debates around "practice as research." 

Drawing on critical perspectives from the sociology of knowledge, phenomenology, dance studies, enactive cognition, and other areas, Spatz argues that technique is a major area of historical and ongoing research in physical culture, performing arts, and everyday life.

chapter |22 pages

Introduction

What Can a Body Do?

chapter |50 pages

An epistemology of practice

chapter |40 pages

The invention of postural yoga

chapter |58 pages

Actors without a theatre

chapter |46 pages

Gender as technique

chapter |36 pages

Embodied research in the university