Lisa Clughen: embodied learning for joyful learning

How do we make the body not only our partner in learning, but our friend? And why would we even want to? The mind-body dualism espoused by Descartes in the 17th century continues to influence our thinking today, with the body – or more specifically, the emotions it houses – often represented as an obstacle to rational thought and therefore its enemy. This is little more than an enduring misogyny that positions emotions – the body – as feminine, irrational, and undesirable, and thought – the mind – as masculine, rational, and desirable. Yet we are all subject to this discourse, all of us alienated by western culture from our bodies and our emotions. Some of us find our way back, to connect what Lisa Clughen cites as ‘the intelligence of the flesh’ with cognition. Lisa strongly believes we should celebrate our embodiment and recognise its centrality to our learning and thinking processes. How many of us have walked or moved to help ease a thought into consciousness? How many have felt the excitement, the joy, when someone has praised something we have done? Similarly, we can aim to induce feelings of awe, interest, joy, amusement in our students to stimulate an emotional and more memorable response to their learning. And perhaps in doing so we can reconnect with our own bodies and our own emotions, and truly engage with the joy of learning and teaching. The resources we mentionedBordo, S. (1993). Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture and the body. University of California Press. Clughen, L. (2002), ‘Lorca's anorexics: hunger strike in the cause of selfhood’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 79: 3, pp. 309-324. https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.79.3.4 Clughen, L. (2014). ‘Embodied writing support’: the importance of the body in engaging students with writing. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 7(2), pp.283-300. Available from:  https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/embodied-writing-support-lisa-clughenDana, D. Rhythm of regulation. Available from https://www.rhythmofregulation.com/glimmers Elbow, P.  (2012). Vernacular eloquence: What speech can bring to writing. Oxford University Press. Forster, E.M. (1909). The machine stops. Available from: https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Machine_stops.pdf Fredrickson, B.L. (2004). The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, Biological Sciences 359(1449): 1367-78. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2004.1512Grosz, E. (1995). Space, time and perversion: The politics of bodies. Routledge. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom.  Taylor and Francis.Immordino‐Yang, M. and Damasio, A. (2007) We feel, therefore, we learn: the relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), pp.3-10.Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2007.00004.xNeff, K. Self-compassion on her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@NeffKristin Orbach, S. (2010). Bodies. Profile BooksRogers, C. ‘The Interpersonal Relationship in the Facilitation of Learning’, In M. Thorpe, R. Edwards and A. Hanson (eds.), Culture and Processes of Adult Learning, London and New York: Open University, (1993 (first published in 1967)), pp. 228242. Shilling, C. (1993). The body and social theory: Theory, culture and society. Sage PublicationsSuzuki, W. (2015). Healthy brain, happy life. Dey Street Books.Woolf, V. (1930). Streethaunting: A London adventure. Available from: https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/news/street-haunting And the article we talked aboutClughen, L. (2025). Eros in the classroom and beyond: cultivating positive emotions for learning, teaching and wellbeing in higher education. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (35). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi35.1348