Hebrew), and Sólveig Þorsteinsdóttir (Icelandic). Finally, we would like to thank all the participants.

In this paper, we attempt to show some consequences of bringing the body back into higher education, through the use of performing arts in the curricular context of scientific programs. We start by arguing that dominant traditions in higher education reproduced the mind-body dualism that shaped the social matrix of meanings on knowledge transmission. We highlight the limits of the modern disembodied and decontextualized reason and suggest that, considering the students’ and teachers’ bodies as non-relevant aspects, or even obstacles, leads to the invisibilization of fundamental aspects involved in teaching and learning processes. We thus conducted a study, from a socio-cultural perspective, in which we analyse the emerging matrix of meanings given to the body and bodily engagement by students, through a systematic qualitative analysis of 47 personal diaries. We structured the results and the discussion around five interpretative axes: (1) the production of diaries enables historicization, while the richness of bodily experience expands the boundaries of diaries into non-textual modalities; (2) curricular context modulates the emergent meanings of the body; (3) physical and symbolic spaces guide the matrix of bodily meanings; (4) the bodily dimension of the courses facilitates the emergence of an emotional dimension to get in touch with others and to register one's own emotional experiences; and (5) the body functions as a condition for biographical continuity. These axes are discussed under the light of the general process of consciousness-raising and resignification of the situated body in the educational practice.

This paper introduces two courses making use of performing arts at university level. The first course, taught by Prof. Simon Henein and his colleagues, called Improgineering, aims to teach collective creation through improvisation to master’s degree students in engineering at the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland). The second course, taught by Prof. Laure Kloetzer and her colleagues, aims to introduce the Psychology of Migration via a sociocultural approach to bachelor’s degree students in psychology and education at the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland). After briefly introducing the topic of performing arts in higher education (section 1), the paper offers a description of the two courses (sections 2 and 3). These are complemented by teachers’ and students’ impressions of the course, as analyzed from individual interviews, focus groups and students’ learning diary entries (section 4). The conclusion presents some reflections on the convergences of the pedagogical designs of the courses, drafting a pedagogical model for using performing arts within higher education (section 5).

aper analyses how a course on improvisation and collective creation in engineering addressed to master’s students in Switzerland moved online. The course offers an experience in the field of performing arts, through embodied and situated activities, and the opportunity to reflect on the process of collective creation, a fundamental aspect of engineering practice often neglected in engineering training. The restrictions imposed by the 2020 pandemic forced its migration to an online format. We explore whether it is possible to maintain online a pedagogical proposal centered on embodied and face-to-face interaction, and what such a course might bring to the students. Using data collected during Spring 2020 (especially a focus group, video-recorded feedbacks and reflective diaries written by the students), we analyze the continuities and discontinuities between the two modalities. We show how the socio-material transformations im plied by the online interactions altered the interactions taking place, discuss the resultant opportunities and novelties offered by the online modality. We highlight that the apparent success of this migration to an online format overshadows the strong collective efforts needed from both students and teachers to maintain the key features of the course (playful experimentation, being inspired by others, horizontality of relations, trust, collective practice, improvisation).