Recapturing the Personal

In this volume contributors discuss both the theoretical and practical applicationsof an embodied knowledge perspective using the field of education asan exemplar. It should be noted that while the theorists whose writings arediscussed in these pages have made seminal contributions to the sociology ofthe body literature it is not possible nor is it our goal to comprehensivelyreview the theoretical discourse of everyone who has written in the area. Ourmore modest aim is to give our audience a sampling of what some of theimportant theoretical positions entail. To that end we turn to the writings ofthe three social and cultural theorists whose work is given the greatest degreeof attention in the volume Foucault Bourdieu and Butler and will brieflysummarize their views.