Bodies of Knowledge

Abstract

I developed a first-day exercise for my interdisciplinary “Feminist Epistemology” class that calms students’ fears about what they imagine will be the unduly abstract (and perhaps burdensomely political) course content, and engages them in easy but revealing conversation about knowledge. Individually and then together, we explore metaphors and proverbs about knowing body parts and bodily images of knowledge that have the potential to teach us something about knowledge itself. From “the nose knows” to having “seminal ideas” to being a “birdbrain,” expressions reveal how we conceive of knowledge, how we value it, what threatens and safeguards it, and how it relates to identity.