We are lived bodies inhabiting a world. Addresses a range of themes which emerge when we reflect upon ourselves in this way: I am a body, yet I have a body; my body is always in communication with a world, I am both sentient and sensible; I am both bounded and open. Consideration of such themes requires an investigation of theoretical constructs of the social and cultural formations of embodied subjectivity, the relations of consciousness and flesh, habit and inhabitation, the significance of body image, relationality and emotions. Major theorists include Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Douglas, Turner, Bachelard and Lingis. Case studies such as reproduction, sacred and profane bodies, bodybuilding and anorexia, dissociation and disembodiment, illness, will be used to enable students to reflect upon their own embodied experience, to examine critically everyday and theoretical assumptions, and to develop skills in qualitative analysis.