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The body influences and creates social fields and common spaces; This knowledge has been submerged and marginalized through history. Yet despite this submersion and marginalization, interrelational and intrarelational synchrony and dis-synchrony centered on and by the communicative body occur on and create immediate fields that can be considered from both historical and observational perspectives. Building on recent theory by Damasio, Donald, Noddings, Grumet, Terdiman, and Nussbaum, the historical concepts and classroom observations presented here find that social values such as caring, loyalty, and generosity are implicitly and explicitly understood through the exchange, perception, and interpretation of the communicative signs and vibrations of the body. This books defines The Immediate Field in order to recover submerged knowledge and in doing so offers a new logic for understanding social communication and process. In turn, my hope is our understanding of immediate fields will further transformational practice in the learning and teaching arts and sciences.

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Mark Wagner is a writer and teacher living with Monica Elefterion and son Myles on a micro-farm in central Massachusetts. He writes on classroom practices and is building a summer school program to include the study of honey bee culture and ecology. His book of poems, A Cabin in a Field (2001) is available through Mellen Poetry Press.

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