Spring term 2009 I did a series of fourteen lectures in a graduate course “Brain Body Movement” at the University of Colorado Boulder.The lectures discuss implications of human moving body from a variety of perspectives including philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, critical theory, and medicine. I discusses the implications in terms of the academic study of religion, the academy in general, and the way we understand dancing.  A detailed outline is available at Brain Body Movement PDF.

I taught this course again in the Spring of 2011 and extensively revised the lectures and changed some of them completely. After Spring 2009 I came to understand that “movement” is the central concern in this inquiry and developing perspective. Thus I observed that the title should have been something more like “Movement: The Ground for the Brain/Body.”  I did not make podcasts of the new lectures, but I do offer them here as PDFs.

Now (2022) over a decade later, my understanding has developed significantly. Now I focus on the active form “moving” rather than the more object implication of the noun “movement” and I refuse to acknowledge any split or division between brain and body except in a discussion of how this pervasive idea has been so ill suited to appreciating being human. I developed these ideas in my award winning book The Proper Study of Religion (2020) and much more fully in my book On Moving (2020).

Despite all this change, I retain the podcasts of these 2009 lectures largely for archival purposes.

2009 Lecture Podcasts:

Vol 1:Introduction Listen
Vol 2:The Meaning of the Body Listen
Vol 3:Tradition and Change: Memory and Neuroplasty Listen 
Vol 4:Imagination, Theory, Story Listen
Vol 5:Color and Reality Listen 
Vol 6:Phantom and Reality Listen 
Vol 7:Making, Agency, Action, Artifice Listen 
Vol 8:Self and Other:Proprioception and Exteroception Listen
Vol 9:Consciousness and Emotion Listen 
Vol 10:Touch, Flesh, and Vision Listen
Vol 11:Emotion, Depth, and Flesh—Part I: Dancing as Pure Depth Listen 
Vol 12:Metaphor, Gesture, Language Listen 
Vol 13:Thought and Cognition Listen 
Vol 14:The Backside of God Listen 

2011 Lecture PDFs:

The Primacy of Movement and Gesture PDF
The Era of Plasticity: Tradition & Change PDF
Imagination, Theory, Story PDF
Color and Reality PDF
Phantom and Reality PDF
Making, Agency, Action, Artifice PDF
Self and Other: Proprioception PDF
Coenaesthesia PDF
Touch, Flesh, and Vision PDF
Pure Depth and Flesh PDF
Consciousness and Emotion PDF
Metaphor and Gesture PDF
Thought Cognition Creativity PDF
The Backside of God PDF