On Thursday and Friday, 6-7 June 2013, the Faculty of Humanities organized the international conference “Anthropology of Embodiment: An Interdisciplinary Focus”, which was organized by the Anthropology of Embodiment Research Group.

Over the two days, the notion of body and embodiment was discussed from an interdisciplinary perspective. In the field of philosophy, platonic dualism was discussed. Roland Breeur, a professor in the Institute of Philosophy at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, gave a lecture on Descartes’ ideas on the subject. The views of philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Edmund Husserl were also presented.

In the arts, topics such as the body in dance, contemporary film and painting were discussed. From a scientific and a legal perspective, topics including the role of artificial intelligence and how the virtual body is treated in legislation were addressed. Dr. Marco Schorlemmer, from the CSIC’s Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, gave a lecture on the former.

Finally, there was a medical approach to the body, which dealt with topics such as ageing and the treatment of amputated limbs. In the closing session, Dr. Cristóbal Pera, the Emeritus Head of Surgery at the Universitat de Barcelona, gave a lecture on the medical view of bodies.

SARX, the Anthropology of Embodiment Research Group headed by Dr. Xavier Escribano, a professor in the UIC Faculty of Humanities, aims to offer a critical review of the dominant paradigms underlying both the natural and human sciences in the understanding of the human body and to establish the bases for the creation of a new integrated model in which multiple scientific, humanistic and artistic perspectives are brought together and mutually enriched.