Interstanding Surfaces: Embodiment, Media and Interdisciplinary Study of Curriculum and Pedagogy

Embodiment grows out from deep concerns about the body and embodied knowledge across disciplines. As both subject and object, the body demands explorations that move beyond the dichotomy of body and mind, surface and depth, outside and inside. The interaction, intensity, and interstanding in the middle activate the body to move, to feel, and to be with other bodies. In the information age, with the rapid change in digital, computerized, and networkable technology, coupled with our growing concerns about the environment, embodiment becomes more complex and shatters the boundaries between human and nonhuman. In a sense, embodiment becomes posthuman by extending itself to interactions and interstandings with other species. In this dissertation, I extend embodiment into aesthetics and media by thickening the notion of surface in all of its profundity, contentious forces, and intertextuality. I emphasize as well its significance in exploring what an embodied curriculum and pedagogy could become for schools and society. This dissertation points toward the interaction and interstanding between philosophy, art, and technology. It encourages a notion of experience that engages readers/viewers viscerally with a technically manipulated surface. The readers/viewers not only encounter the theoretical mapping of the content of this dissertation, but also imagine and investigate the metaphorical and metaphysical possibilities of curriculum and pedagogy.