Embodied knowledge

 

Today in class Rufus sir spoke about embodied knowledge, and honestly, it flipped a switch in my head. We always think knowledge is in books, in brains, in classrooms. But embodied knowledge? It’s the kind that lives in us the wisdom of the body, the instincts, the scars, the gestures. It’s what you feel before you even think.

And when I connected that to world literature, boom it started making sense why certain texts feel so alive. Because literature doesn’t just talk through words; it moves through bodies.

Epic Literature: Bodies as Maps of Memory

In The Mahabharata, Arjuna’s body itself becomes the ground where dharma is tested. His archery, his hesitation, his battle scars all show how wisdom is not abstract but embodied.

Colonial & Postcolonial Voices

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart shows us that colonizers could rewrite books, but they couldn’t erase embodied traditions. Wrestling, ritual dances, farming rhythms this is knowledge that lived in bodies and communities. It’s the same with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s works, where language and gesture are carried in the body as resistance.

And in Indian literature, think about how rituals in village life are not “taught” in a syllabus they’re learned through touch, repetition, bodily practice. That’s embodied knowledge keeping culture alive.

Women’s Writing: Survival as Embodied Wisdom

Maya Angelou in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a perfect example. Her body carries trauma but also strength. Survival itself becomes a form of embodied knowledge resilience written into her bones.

In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the scars on Sethe’s back are literally a text a tree of pain and history carved onto her skin. The body becomes a document of slavery, memory, and resistance.

Performance & Oral Traditions: Knowledge Beyond Pages

When we look at African oral epics, Indian folk ballads, or Indigenous storytelling, the knowledge isn’t just in words it’s in the voice, the rhythm, the dance, the pauses. Literature here isn’t “read”; it’s embodied through performance.

Even Shakespeare think about Hamlet. The hesitation in his actions, his pacing, his pauses performance itself turns psychological knowledge into embodied experience for the audience.

Modern Texts: The Body as Protest

In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, women’s bodies are turned into political texts controlled, silenced, but also resisting. Their embodied experience exposes the structures of power.

Or in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, the act of running, flying kites, carrying guilt embodied gestures become central to memory and redemption.

Why This Matters

What sir’s class made me realize is: world literature is not just brainy stuff, it’s body-deep. From scars in Morrison, to dances in Achebe, to Odysseus’ bruises, to Angelou’s resilience knowledge is always embodied. The body becomes a library, a living archive of wisdom.

So next time I open a book, I’m not just looking for plot or theme I’m asking: what kind of knowledge is this body carrying?

Because literature is not just what we read.

It’s what we feel, breathe, and embody.