The Touch of the Present: Educational Encounters, Aesthetics, and the Politics of the Senses (SUNY series, Transforming Subjects: Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Studies in Education)

Explores the importance of the body and the senses in educational encounters, drawing out the aesthetic and political dimensions of educational practices. How are educational encounters understood, experienced, and lived?How are they conceptualized? How do they shape our being in and of the world? In this time of apparent distance and disconnect, this volume emphasizes the role of contact and connectedness in education, above all by understanding education as encounters, as embodied, sensory experiences.Drawing on a range of theoretical positions that highlight our profound interconnection with things and other bodies-from feminism to Buddhism to new materialism and beyond-Sharon Todd argues that educational encounters are formations of "touching" and "being touched by." They are singular in their eventfulness and yet bring us into relation with our environment.Focusing particular attention on two key issues for teachers and students today-the climate emergency and online education-The