Yoga in the Modern World: Contemporary Perspectives
Editors Mark Singleton & Jean Byrne
About the Book
(First print in hardback)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yoga-Modern-World-Contemporary-Perspectives/dp/0415452589
http://www.routledgeasianstudies.com/books/Yoga-in-the-Modern-World-isbn9780415452588
Today yoga is a thoroughly globalised phenomenon. Yoga has taken the world by storm and is even seeing renewed popularity in India. Both in India and abroad, adults, children and teenagers are practicing yoga in diverse settings; gyms, schools, home, work, yoga studios and temples. The yoga diaspora began well over a hundred years ago and we continue to see new manifestations and uses of Yoga in the modern world.
As the first of its kind this collection draws together cutting edge scholarship in the field, focusing on the theory and practice of yoga in contemporary times. Offering a range of perspectives on yoga's contemporary manifestations, it maps the movement, development and consolidation of yoga in global settings. The collection features some of the most well-known authors within the field and newer voices. The contributions span a number of disciplines in the humanities, including, anthropology, Philosophy, Studies in Religion and Asian studies, offering a range of entry points to the issues involved in the study of the subject. As such, is of use to those involved in academic scholarship, as well as to the growing number of yoga practitioners who seek a deeper account of the origin and significance of the techniques and traditions they are engaging with. It will also-and perhaps most of all-speak to the growing numbers of 'scholar-practitioners' who straddle these two realms.
About the Editor(s)
Mark Singleton teaches at St. John's College, Santa Fe, USA. He works on the history of ideas within transnational modern yoga, and he is a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Hinduism (Routledge 2007).
Jean Byrne is affiliated with the University of Queensland, Australia and her research explores the intersection of feminist theory and yoga philosophy and practice. She lectures in Eastern Philosophy and runs The Yoga Space in Perth, Australia where she teaches Ashtanga Yoga.
Contents
Introduction
MARK SINGLETON AND JEAN BYRNE
Mapping the Terrain
Modern Yoga: History and Forms
ELIZABETH DE MICHELIS
Yoga Shivir: Methodological and Ethical Problems in the Study of Modern Yoga.
JOSEPH S. ALTER
‘Adapt, Adjust, Accommodate’: The Production of Yoga in a Transnational World
SARAH STRAUSS
Posturing for Authenticity
The Classical Reveries of Modern Yoga: Patañjali and Constructive Orientalism
MARK SINGLETON
The Reflexivity of the Authenticity of Ha ha Yoga
KENNETH LIBERMAN
Understanding the Experience of Yoga Practice
Empowerment and Using the Body in Modern Postural Yoga
KLAS NEVRIN
‘With heat even iron will bend’: Discipline and authority in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga
BENJAMIN RICHARD SMITH
The Numinous and Cessative in Modern Yoga
STUART SARBACKER
The Intersection of Past and Present
From Fusion to Confusion: A Consideration of Sex and Sexuality in Traditional and Contemporary Yoga
MIKEL BURLEY
Contributors
JOSEPH S. ALTER teaches anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. His research is in the field of medical anthropology, and his most recent publications are Yoga in Modern India: the Body Between Science and Philosophy (Princeton University Press, 2004), and Asian Medicine and Globalization (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005). He is currently working on a book on Nature Cure and modernity in contemporary India.
MIKEL BURLEY teaches in the School of Philosophy and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Leeds. His publications include Classical Sa khya and Yoga: An Indian Metaphysics of Experience (Routledge, 2007), Ha ha-Yoga: Its Context, Theory and Practice (Motilal Banarsidass, 2000), and several journal articles on both Indian and western philosophy. He is also a qualified Yoga instructor with the Devon School of Yoga.
KENNETH LIBERMAN is Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon, where he also teaches courses on yoga. He was Fulbright Professor at the University of Mysore and has lived three years in Tibetan monastic universities. His books include Dialectical Practice in Tibetan Philosophical Culture (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), Husserl's Criticism of Reason (Lexington Books, 2007), and Understanding Interaction in Central Australia (Routledge, 1985).
ELIZABETH DE MICHELIS holds the Gordon Milburn Junior Research Fellowship at the Theology Faculty and Oriel College, University of Oxford, UK. She is currently researching the ancient and modern history of yoga and meditation in Hindu, Buddhist and contemporary transnational contexts. She is especially interested in problems of knowledge transmission and authority validation, philosophy and texts, East-West dialogue and exchanges, and Indic-inspired aspects of Western esotericism.
KLAS NEVRIN is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department for History of Religions, Stockholm University (Sweden). His research interests include Modern Yoga and Contemporary Improvisational Musical Performance. He is currently involved with the philosophical and methodological elaboration of a performance studies approach, informed by recent work on embodiment, emotion, aesthetics, ritual, and hermeneutical phenomenology. He is also a professional improvising pianist.
STUART RAY SARBACKER, Senior Lecturer in Religion at Northwestern University, specializes in the History of Religions with a focus on South Asia. His work is centred upon the theory and practice of yoga and tantra in the traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, especially in the Indo-Tibetan region
BENJAMIN RICHARD SMITH is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University. His research interests include Aboriginal Australia, Modern Postural Yoga and the Anthropology of Photography. His recent publications include 'Body, Mind and Spirit? Towards An Analysis of the Practice of Yoga', Body & Society 13(2).
SARAH STRAUSS is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wyoming. She has conducted ethnographic research in India, Switzerland, and the United States on topics related to health and the environment. Recent books include Positioning Yoga (Berg Publishers, Oxford, 2004) and Weather, Climate, Culture (Berg Publishers, Oxford, 2003; co-edited with Benjamin S. Orlove).