Banca de DEFESA: JUDSON CAVALCANTE BEZERRA

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : JUDSON CAVALCANTE BEZERRA
DATE: 16/12/2025
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: Auditório 01 do PPGEd - NEPSA II
TITLE:

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KEY WORDS:

Playfulness, Phenomenology, Education, Body, Sensitivity.

PAGES: 161
BIG AREA: Ciências Humanas
AREA: Educação
SUMMARY:

This is a theoretical-philosophical study that investigates the phenomenon of playfulness
in education, establishing a dialogue between Johan Huizinga (1946, 2013, 2017) and
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1983, 1991, 2006, 2014, 2018) to propose the thesis that
playfulness, conceived as an ontological trait of the aesthesiological body, expands the
linear understanding that reduces it to a mere response to the stimulus of play by
recognizing the expression of sensitive knowledge such as vertigo, tension, excitement,
joy, sadness, pleasure, and frustration, thereby broadening the educational meanings and
senses of playful experiences. To this end, it questions how the interface between body,
playfulness, and education unfolds in light of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of the body and
Johan Huizinga’s writings on Homo ludens. This dialogue does not occur in an isolated
manner but throughout the text, interwoven with contributions from other thinkers such
as Morin (2001), Machado (2010), and Santin (2001), among others. The interest in this
theme emerges from my lived world and my experience as a Physical Education teacher,
realizing that playfulness is often reduced to the childlike universe or to play itself, being
neglected in traditional educational practices. From this perspective, we adopt a
phenomenological stance grounded in the lived world and in the account of playful
experiences that have marked and continue to mark my existence, ranging from personal
experiences to those with my own children. As a backdrop for the reflections developed
throughout the text, literature and cinema are activated as devices of sensitivity. The
central figures of this articulation with literature and cinema are The Little Prince, Baron
Munchausen, and the girl Sally. Finally, the encounters and disagreements provoked by the
dialogue between Huizinga and Merleau-Ponty, in articulation with the movement of
phenomenological reduction and description of the lived world, reveal that playfulness is
an embodied phenomenon, not predetermined, which is made and remade in the
encounter between the flesh of the body and the flesh of the world; that playfulness does
not belong only to the child or the primitive, but is an ontological dimension of being that
is also present in adults and the civilized, crossing cultures and contexts. Thus, an expanded
understanding of playfulness can contribute to overcoming reductionist pedagogical
practices, valuing the body, movement, and sensitivity as central elements of the
educational process. As a suggestion for future research agendas, we indicate the
articulation between theory and practice, promoting playful experiences at all levels and
contexts of education.

 

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Externa à Instituição - MARIA CECÍLIA BARELLI
Externa à Instituição - ANA CRISTINA ZIMMERMANN - USP
Externo ao Programa - 1149620 - JOSE PEREIRA DE MELO - nullInterna - 1672476 - ROSIE MARIE NASCIMENTO DE MEDEIROS
Presidente - 1049922 - TEREZINHA PETRUCIA DA NOBREGA