Episode 105 - Aimi Hamraie

This episode begins our new mini-series on bodies and embodiment. Leah Marion Roberts, senior graduate teaching fellow at the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching, interviews experts who can help us understand why paying attention to bodies in teaching and learning spaces is important. The episodes explore how theories of the body make sense of social life and inequity; how learning is sensory, experiential, physical and emotional; how educators can incorporate embodied practices into their classrooms to enhance learning; and the relationships between bodies and technology. On this first installment, Leah talks with Aimi Hamraie, associate professor of medicine, health, and society and of American studies here at Vanderbilt University. They direct the Critical Design Lab and host the Contra* podcast on disability, design justice, and the lifeworld. They are also the author of Building Access: University Design and the Politics of Disability from the University of Minnesota Press. Aimi is trained as an intersectional feminist scholar, and their work focuses on disability, accessibility, and design. In the interview, Aimi shares some key conceptions of embodied learning from their interdisciplinary perspective, discusses the intersection of bodies and learning and technology, and provides some very interesting examples of teaching practices that tap into embodied learning. Links • Aimi Hamraie’s website, https://aimihamraie.wordpress.com/ • Aimi Hamraie on Twitter, https://twitter.com/AimiHamraie • “Accessible Teaching in the Time of COVID-19,” https://www.mapping-access.com/blog-1/2020/3/10/accessible-teaching-in-the-time-of-covid-19 • Episode 208: Curb Cuts, 99% Invisible, https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/curb-cuts/ • Ashley Shew, Virginia Tech, https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-science-technology-and-society/faculty/ashley-shew.html • Jentery Sayers, University of Victoria, https://www.uvic.ca/humanities/english/people/regularfaculty/sayers-jentery.php