The emerging field of body ecology offers fresh insights into how the body engages with its surrounding environment through consciousness, perception, knowledge and emotion. In this groundbreaking collection, leading scholars of sport, leisure and philosophy draw on research on topics as diverse as surfing, freediving, slacklining, parkour, bodybuilding, dance and circus arts to flesh out the concept of body ecology and its potential for helping us understand our connection with the world around us. Touching on theories of subjectivity, embodiment, pleasure and play, this book explores different approaches to studying body ecology as a way of conceptualising the experience of being immersed in nature, in the elements and in one's own body through the power of awareness. An experience becomes emersive when it involves the production of new emotions in the body: emersion is the activation of what is living within the body itself. Shedding new light on the possibilities of physical cultural studies, Body Ecology and Emersive Leisure is fascinating reading for all students and scholars with an interest in sport, leisure, philosophy and the body.

This volume discusses Alfred Binet's works on pedagogy based on his "Orthopedie Mentale". Binet had empirically found that his idea of a test of general intelligence could be replaced by a test on "problem areas". These problem areas were then to be specifically addressed and improved within a relatively short time. As a result, students dramatically improved in their IQ test results. Binet died before he could publish the results. Fortunately, the rector of the school, Victor Vaney, published the results of Binet's experiments in his school. This volume provides the first English translation of Vaney's publication as well as an introduction to Binet's mostly forgotten late work.