Thesis advisor: Richard R. Gaillardetz / This dissertation analyzes the various images of the body in the metaphor of the church as a body, or the body of Christ, in modern Catholic ecclesiology in order to reimagine the corporeal metaphor for postconciliar ecclesiology. The metaphor of the church as a body has a vertical dimension expressing the relationship between Christ and the church and a horizontal dimension expressing the relationships among Christians. In its vertical dimension, “body” has been understood as ‘self’ and/or as ‘spouse.’ In its horizontal dimension, the body has been understood as a living organism and/or as an ordered society. In the magisterial tradition especially, the body is described as a well-bounded and hierarchically ordered organism, in which members are united under a head and share in one common life, and which manifests the person to the world. The metaphor of the church as a body, then, has most often been used to express and justify papal authority and primacy and the exclusion of non-Catholics from the body of Christ, and to posit the Catholic Church as the ongoing manifestation of Christ’s presence and authority. This dissertation utilizes the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to challenge these notions of the body, showing instead that the body is ‘intercorporeal’—interwoven with other bodies, united by meaningful action, and having flexible boundaries. The body is the necessary foundation of existence in the world, but can also inhibit personal presence as well. In light of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, this dissertation argues for a vision of the church as an intercorporeal body—a missionary, dialogical, and decentralized body that is capable of mediating, but also inhibiting, the presence of Christ to the world. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Intentionality, in its various forms, connects the subject with objects as they appear within the subject's view of the world. Poets, like artists, create with their bodies and perceive the world with their senses and with their souls. Subjects allow objects to reveal themselves, to manifest themselves having identities according to the contexts in which they appear. This system is called intentionality—a phenomenological concept in which appearances have ontological meanings. Phenomenology, as explained by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, provides a theoretical framework within which Pedro Salinas's poetry may be understood and interpreted. Pedro Salinas forms part of Spain's Generation of 1927 and produces collections of poetry about the intentionality of the beloved during a love affair. La voz a ti debida, Razon de Amor, and Largo Lamento form a type of trilogy under the suggestion of his friend Jorge Guillén. Salinas resides in America during and after the Spanish Civil War and composes poems which later appear in Largo Lamento posthumously. "La memoria en las manos" exemplifies how the subject intends the stone and his hands while remembering an experience with the beloved. The poetic self in the poem probes the identities of objects in order to comprehend the essence of the beloved and of himself.Pedro Salinas practices intense observations in real life when he travels. While teaching in various schools across the country, he attends conferences showcasing his literary criticism, poetry, and playwriting. He corresponds prolifically with his wife Margarita Bonmatí­ . Through his correspondence with his wife, we see how despite distances and space, he thinks of her constantly. He relates a theory of tourism that coincides with Merleau-Ponty's "brute expression." On one occasion, he travels to Los Angeles, California to attend a literary conference. Along the way he travels through Missouri, Colorado, and Utah visiting various landscapes, national parks, and cities. He chronicles his impressions in letters to his wife. The letters Salinas writes and the appearances he contemplates show his focus and soul are not only his wife, but also Katherine Whitmore, his lover. Margarita and Katherine form a conflation that Salinas perceives in his surroundings.

En la Fenomenología de la Percepción se distinguen dos modos de estudiar el lenguaje: Una es la corriente empirista, que supone al lenguaje como un fenómeno que se interpreta como la acción de ciertos estímulos del cuerpo, asociando los vocablos a las imágenes conectadas a través del aparato nervioso. Por otra parte, se encuentra la lingüística que proviene de la tradición intelectualista, la cual contrarresta los trabajos empiristas aduciendo que el lenguaje es una elaboración de la propia conciencia. la encargada de significar el mundo exterior con sus categorías y pensamientos. Para Merleau-Ponty, tanto el empirismo como el intelectualismo, al elaborar sus hipótesis sobre el lenguaje y la relación mundo-sujeto, olvidan el punto de partida que al fenomenólogo le interesa retomar: hay una relación primera entre el sujeto y el mundo, anterior a toda concepción, a toda formulación del lenguaje, que se establece en la percepción, que es génesis de nuestras certidumbres. Lo novedosos de la obra de Merleau-Ponty es señalar este problema y deconstruir este “verdeckt”, volviendo al silencio y encontrar en él –a través del cuerpo- los orígenes del lenguaje. Merleau-Ponty dirá que en este esfuerzo de volver sobre el olvido, supone elaborar un itinerario sobre las etapas por las cuales se pueden entender la posibilidad de la emergencia del lenguaje a partir de la relación cuerpo - mundo. Para el autor, se debe volver a esa relación preconcebida (fe perceptiva), en la que no hay pensamientos que determinen nuestra experiencia. Desde el vínculo cuerpo-mundo, descubriremos de qué manera Merleau-Ponty logra integrar las concepciones anteriores. Sin rechazarlas ni suprimirlas, propone una síntesis en la cual, lo que tiene de unilateral el empirismo y el intelectualismo podría superarse en una dialéctica que las integre y cuyo secreto se encontraría en la temporalidad de la existencia humana. Para proponer esta perspectiva, Merleau-Ponty tiene que subrayar que el contacto con el mundo comienza antes del conocimiento, es decir, con la percepción.

Vi har utfört en kvalitativ undersökning där vi på två olika skolor utfört djupintervjuer med pedagoger och rektorer samt gjort deltagande observationer under skoldagen. Vi har undersökt hur två skolor i Skåne arbetar med daglig fysisk aktivitet. Vi har utgått från fenomenologins tankar om den fenomenala kroppen när vi analyserat hur pedagogerna använder sig av fysisk aktivitet under skoldagen. Att kroppen är fenomenal betyder att den är upplevande. Den är både subjekt och objekt, för sig själv och för andra. Det går inte att dela på kropp och själ. Pedagogerna har olika sätt att se på kroppen beroende på i vilket sammanhang den fysiska aktiviteten äger rum. Pedagogerna utgår från fenomenologins tankar om den fenomenala kroppen när de har undervisningen som utgångspunkt när den fysiska aktiviteten äger rum. När pedagogerna avbryter undervisningen för att erbjuda eleverna fysisk aktivitet utgår de inte från fenomenologins tankar om den fenomenala kroppen. I dessa situationer ser de kroppen som en fysisk kropp. De ser kroppen som enbart objekt, en materiell icke-tänkande kropp. Det vi menar är att när pedagogerna använder den dagliga fysiska aktiviteten för att uppnå det nya läroplanstillägget har vi sett sambandet att kroppen enbart ses som fysisk och aktiviteten sker oftast som ett avbrott från den pågående undervisningen.Vår undersökning visar att pedagoger erbjuder elever daglig fysisk aktivitet. Fysiskt inaktiva elever deltar i den dagliga fysiska aktiviteten i lika hög grad som övriga elever. Pedagoger säger att elever kan koncentrera sig bättre efter fysisk aktivitet. Det har visat sig vara lättare att införa daglig fysisk aktivitet i de lägre åldrarna (år f-3 ) jämfört med de högre åldrarna (år 4-6). Pedagoger och rektorer menar att samhällsutvecklingen är en bidragande orsak till att barn rör sig mindre idag. De anser att detta är ett skäl till att läroplanstillägget om daglig fysisk aktivitet har uppkommit. Engagemanget hos rektorer och pedagoger när det gäller daglig fysisk aktivitet är stort på båda skolorna.

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This dissertation describes the effects of a somatic mindfulness project on the way participants interact with and respond to works of art in a gallery setting. The study begins with a critique of Descartes' philosophy, Cartesianism, which emphasizes the role of the mind over that of the body and senses and argues that this thought continues to affect education even today. By contrast, phenomenology and mindfulness practices attempt to overcome Descartes' legacy by focusing on the importance of the body in lived experience. In particular, this study uses a phenomenological framework to conduct mindfulness on the relationship between the body and the perception of art. To do so, I utilized several phenomenological techniques for gathering data, including observations, video, and interviews, and I also created a unique method to analyze the data using a phenomenological verbal (written) description and visual (through photographic paintings) description. These techniques worked together to express the moment of reversibility between the meditative body and the artworks in the gallery setting. In sum, the findings of this study show that meditation changes the perceptual experience for different people in different ways. Another finding is that different forms of meditation may work better for some people than others. The findings of this study suggest that if art teachers are interested in using meditation, they need to be familiar with multiple forms of meditation. Also, they need to consider the role of the environment, as well as that of the artworks, in creating a wholistic meditative mood.

Cette thèse doctorale est une exploration du concept de déploiement spatial genré à partir d'un cadre théorique de phénoménologie féministe. En partant de la phénoménologie incarnée et existentielle de Maurice Merleau-Ponty, j'argumente qu'il y a une constitution mutuelle entre le corps et l'espace qui s'effectue au prisme du genre. Le déploiement spatial genré est un concept illustrant comment les sujets incarnés occupent l'espace de façon située, existentielle et ontologique. La pensée d'Iris Marion Young est également centrale à mon propos phénoménologique afin d'illustrer la portée politique de ce déploiement spatial genré, qui a pour conséquence la création d'espaces genrés. En complexifiant la philosophie de Merleau-Ponty, Young ouvre la voie à une riche branche de la phénoménologie féministe contemporaine dans laquelle j'insère mon étude doctorale en augmentant sa conception d'intentionnalité entravée et en développant celle de l'intentionnalité appropriatrice. J'effectue des incursions théoriques du côté de la géographie féministe pour étudier la notion d'agentivité spatiale en lien avec la corporéité et la spatialité et finalement regarder comment les lieux s'inscrivent dans, et constituent, les subjectivités. Suivant cette exploration du déploiement genré et des espaces genrés, j'étudie certaines conséquences ontologiques découlant de l'inégal accès aux espaces selon le genre : les expériences vécues féminines du déplacement dans l'espace selon la modalité affective de la peur, l'augmentation de leur vulnérabilité situationnelle et le désalignement temporel féminin. / This dissertation is an exploration of the concept of gendered spatial deployment from the theoretical framework of feminist phenomenology. Starting from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's embodied and existential phenomenology, I argue that there is a mutual constitution between the body and space that takes place through the prism of gender. Gendered spatial deployment is a concept that illustrates how embodied subjects take up space in situated, existential, and ontological ways. Iris Marion Young's thought is also central to my phenomenological proposal. Her work illustrates the political significance of this gendered spatial deployment, which has resulted in the creation of gendered spaces in Western society in the 20th and 21st centuries. By complexifying Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, Young opens the way to a rich branch of contemporary feminist phenomenology, and the present doctoral research is situated within this emerging field through my extension of her conception of *inhibited* intentionality and my development of a notion of *appropriative* intentionality. Furthermore, I make theoretical forays into feminist geography to study the notion of spatial agentivity in relation to embodiment and spatiality, and ultimately to look at how places are inscribed in, and constitutive of, subjectivities. Following this exploration of gendered deployment and gendered spaces, I examine some of the ontological consequences of unequal gendered access to spaces and spatiality more generally: women's lived experiences of spatial displacement in the affective modality of fear, their increased situational vulnerability, and female temporal misalignment.

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Drawing on the ideas of J.G. Fichte and M. Merleau-Ponty, I argue that experience and freedom are intersubjective, linguistic, and bodily. In the first chapter, I take up Fichte's three "fundamental principles" from the Science of Knowledge alongside his ideas of embodiment and intersubjectivity from the Foundations of Natural Right to show that all experience is an indefinite mixture of self and not-self, and, therefore, that both the experiences of self-consciousness and its freedom must also be accomplished with reference to the not-self, and particularly others. The second chapter is an examination of Merleau-Ponty's account of expression in his Phenomenology of Perception. The key insight I pursue here is that the medium of expression, which makes possible all significance, is bodily and intersubjective, and that any expressive act is therefore both self-opaque and soliciting cooperation. In the end, I turn to how this cooperation, i.e. freedom, should be enacted.