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By Malou Juelskjær, Thomas Moser & Theresa S. S. Schilhab

This anthology presents a multiplicity of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, by authors, all engaged in the development or refinement of theories of learning bodies. Therefore, aspects of learning bodies are the common element in the chapters of this anthology. First of all, the idea of the body as a container is challenged, not to say left behind, while other ways of thinking and conceptualising are invented/presented. Furthermore, the common concept, which is meant to bind this anthology together, is learning, but not as a homogeneous and explicit understanding, but as a multitude of many-sided interpretations of both body and learning. It is a shared opinion of all of the authors that learning is not reducible to a pure cognitive or even neurological process, that learning embraces far more than a transfer of knowledge, and that learning concerns not only the cognitive domain, but also other domains like emotion, personality and identity as well as social and cultural processes. Whether we are dealing with such many-sided issues as the neurological foundations of learning processes, skill acquisition, mental health and illness, aesthetics or the physical space where learning is going on, you never will get to the complexity of ‘the matter’ unless you keep the body in mind. Not only as a biological system, but as the genuine and holistic manner how humans are related, or embedded, in the physical and social world. Body, movement and senses, i.e. corporeality, provide the necessary experiences for change and development in a life long learning perspective.

We hope that by presenting this multitude of interpretations, the reader is inspired and challenged to continuously strive and re-think ways of thinking and knowing, instead of fixing and unequivocalising. In a sense, by forcing the reader to acknowledge a diversity of angles, the anthology also rehearses a central theme in philosophy of science by accentuating perspectives and the need of merging different approaches to achieve further insights.