Inhaling Spirit

Harmonialism, Orientalism, and the Western Roots of Modern Yoga

Anya P. Foxen (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

336 Seiten

2020
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-008273-4 (ISBN)

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Recent scholarship has shown that modern postural yoga is the outcome of a complex process of transcultural exchange and syncretism. This book doubles down on those claims and digs even deeper, looking to uncover the disparate but entangled roots of modern yoga practice. Anya Foxen shows that some of what we call yoga, especially in North America and Europe, is genealogically only slightly related to pre-modern Indian yoga traditions. Rather, it is equally, if not more so, grounded in Hellenistic theories of the subtle body, Western esotericism and magic, pre-modern European medicine, and late-nineteenth-century women's wellness programs. The book begins by examining concepts arising out of Greek philosophy and religion, including Pythagoreanism, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Galenic medicine, theurgy, and other cultural currents that have traditionally been categorized as "Western esotericism," as well as the more recent examples which scholars of American traditions have labeled "metaphysical religion." Marshaling these under the umbrella category of "harmonialism," Foxen argues that they represent a history of practices that were gradually subsumed into the language of yoga.

Orientalism and gender become important categories of analysis as this narrative moves into the nineteenth century. Women considerably outnumber men in all studies of yoga except those conducted in India, and modern anglophone yoga exhibits important continuities with women's physical culture, feminist reform, and white women's engagement with Orientalism. Foxen's study allows us to recontextualize the peculiarities of American yoga--its focus on aesthetic representation, its privileging of bodily posture and unsystematic incorporation of breathwork, and above all its overwhelmingly white female demographic. In this context it addresses the ongoing conversation about cultural appropriation within the yoga community.

Anya P. Foxen, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, with a dual appointment in Religious Studies and Women's and Gender Studies. Her research centers primarily on alternative spiritualities and their intersections with gender, modernity, and science. She is a certified yoga instructor and long-time practitioner.

List Of Figures

Note On Transliteration

Acknowledgements

Introduction: We, Other Greeks

1: Hot Souls, Pneumatic Bodies, and Interplanetary Journeys

2: Harmonic Spirits and the Music of the Spheres

3: Breathing for Nerve Force, Posing for Poise

4: Pneumatic Dancing Girls

5: A Nautch Girl to Teach Us Delsarte

6: Adaptations, Appropriations, and Aerobics

Epilogue: Ceci n'est pas un Yogi, redux

Bibliography

Notes

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	18.03.2020
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	239 x 147 mm
Gewicht	599 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Hinduismus
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften
ISBN-10	0-19-008273-9 / 0190082739
ISBN-13	978-0-19-008273-4 / 9780190082734
Zustand	Neuware