We will look at the key figures who are influential in modern mindfulness, reflect upon the controversies, and critique the public discourse –– such as public policy, social values, and social vision –– that surrounds modern mindfulness.
– Tessa Watt
This PodCourse entitled Mindfulness in the Modern World is taught by Tessa Watt, PhD at SOAS University of London.
In this course we will look at the rise of the modern mindfulness movement from its roots in Buddhist traditions to its role in 21st century public discourse.
This PodCourse focuses specifically on Mindfulness in the Modern World and is divided into three modules:
Module 1: The Roots of Modern Mindfulness.
In the first module, we will consider: definitions of modern mindfulness, the difference between mindfulness and meditation, the roots of mindfulness practice in Buddhism, and the key figures and practices of modern mindfulness in therapeutic and clinical settings.
Module 2: Controversies in Modern Mindfulness.
In the second module, we will examine some of the critiques and criticisms that modern mindfulness has encountered during its rise in popularity. We will consider scholarly debates about its definition, whether it is a religion by stealth, the potential dangers and ethical challenges, and its role as a tool for/against capitalism and activism.
Module 3: Mindfulness in Public Discourse.
In the third module, we will consider the suggestion that mindfulness is ‘an essential skill’ that can help with the pressing challenges of our age. We will attempt to answer the important question ‘what is mindfulness for? ‘ to determine whether it assists or impedes social resilience and innovation.
The learning outcomes anticipated for this PodCourse are:
We will examine the ways in which race, gender, and capitalism are important factors in shaping how practitioners connect to yoga practice in ways that may have damaging effects on people who are excluded.
– Siân Hawthorne
This PodCourse entitled The Margins of Modern Yoga: Yoga as Transformative Practice is taught by Siân Hawthorne, PhD, a Senior Lecturer of SOAS University of London.
Modern yoga as practiced in the West is an embodied practice that claims to improve physical and mental wellbeing, often connected to spiritual transformation. However much it is both experienced and marketed as a tool for individual empowerment and transformation, however much claims circulate that “yoga is for everybody”, Modern Yoga’s idealisations of the yoga body, and the demographics of its participants and teachers, establish a set of norms that may be exclusionary and alienating to communities who are unlikely or unable to conform to these idealisations.
This PodCourse will examine through a variety of theoretical lenses how body norms function in terms of race, gender and disability to exclude and include certain populations. We will think through how to challenge the body norms of Modern Yoga so that those placed at the margins can make true the claim that “yoga is for everyone”. We will be particularly concerned to ask questions about cultural appropriation, racism, and ableism and to try to offer some answers to how Yoga can be a force for social and political transformation and justice when the margins are centred.
This PodCourse focuses specifically on The Margins of Modern Yoga: Yoga as Transformative Practice and is divided into three modules:
Module 1: Biopower, Normativity, Whiteness
In the first module, we will examine the concept of ‘biopower’ developed by a twentieth-century French Philosopher, Michel Foucault primarily because he offers a very compelling account of how we come to think of ourselves as individuals who have free will but how that sense of ourselves is connected to forms of power that are often constraining. We will then explore his ideas about disciplinary power and normalisation before shifting to look at how whiteness is established as a norm which directs people’s behaviour and ensures the exclusion of non-white people.
Module 2: Normativity Gender and Abjection in Modern Yoga
In the second module, we will examine the relationship between gender norms, whiteness, and the frequently cited claim that ‘yoga is for everyone’.
Module 3: Selling Spirituality: Yoga in an age of Neoliberalism.
In the third and final module, we will turn our focus to the relationship between the capitalist marketisation of yoga, its connection to spirituality, and how yoga practitioners can contribute to a more socially just world by resisting and challenging the exclusivist norms and social structures that result in exclusion, exploitation, and inequality.
The learning outcomes anticipated for this course are:
We will consider female ascetics in relation to traditional religious orders to examine women’s accessibility to embodied yogic practices and austerities.
– Daniela Bevilacqua
This PodCourse entitled Female Asceticism and Yoga is taught by Daniela Bevilacqua, PhD, a post-doctoral research associate of SOAS University of London.
In this PodCourse we will address the topic of female asceticism and yoga from a historical and ethnographic perspective. We will focus on specific ascetic groups which we call ‘Hindu’ here, to make it clear that we will not be dealing with Buddhism, Jainism, or other South Asian traditions. Specifically, we will deal with female ascetics in relation to traditional, orthodox sampradāyas (religious orders) to examine women’s accessibility to embodied yogic practices and austerities. This issue will then be compared with the accessibility of these practices to foreign female ascetics. This will enable us to consider the effect of ‘globalization’ and ‘Easternization’ in traditional, ascetic milieus and to analyse the role of foreign women in it.
The aim of the course, therefore, is on one hand to introduce the student to the topic of female ascetism and the presence of embodied practices among female practitioners, and on the other hand to analyse the role of foreign women in ascetics circles from a ‘social’ rather than religious point of view, shedding light on a subject that is very often overlooked.
This PodCourse focuses specifically on Female Asceticism and Yoga and is divided into three modules:
Module 1: Female asceticism from a historical perspective
In the first module, we will frame the course by highlighting the role and position of female asceticism in the past. We will reconstruct the history of female asceticism by considering different sources (textual and archaeological) and different religious contexts in order to place it in a diachronic perspective.
Module 2: Female asceticism and embodied practices
In the second module, using both a historical and ethnographic perspective, we will consider the link between female ascetics and embodied yogic practices (such as āsanas, prāṇāyāmas, etc.) as well as tapasyās (austerities). Eventually, we will see what kind of religious practices are more commonly associated with women today.
Module 3: Foreign and Indian female ascetics, a social confrontation
In the third module, we will deal with the entry into traditional sampradāyas of foreigners and especially foreign women, framing their presence among the contemporary trends of female asceticism in India. We will then compare foreign women’s access to embodied practice on one hand with the early female disciples of yoga ‘lay gurus’ like Krishnamacarya and ‘ascetic gurus’ like Sivananda, and on the other, with Indian female ascetics. Taking into account what we learned in the previous modules, we will analyse this comparison from a social perspective to reflect on the role of foreign women ascetics in the sādhus’ society.
The learning outcomes anticipated for this course are:
We will cover things such as victim blaming, the use of spiritual language to silence, pre- and post- #metoo and what role academia has played.
– Amelia Wood
This PodCourse is the first in a series entitled Spiritual Abuse In Modern Yoga taught by Amelia Wood, PhD Candidate at SOAS University of London.
In this PodCourse Amelia will offer, and critique, definitions of “Spiritual Abuse”. There will be space to consider how such definitions relate, and are relevant, to the context of modern transnational yoga. The parameters of modern yoga will be defined and we will examine why it is important to understand instances and allegations of abuses of power in yoga communities as Spiritual Abuse – what does such a definition include and exclude?
We will critically examine the discourse(s) that frame instances of abuse to consider how perpetrators are protected whilst victims are silenced. We will do this by looking at the ways in which the media, academia and wider institutions have responded to allegations – what can Spiritual Abuse and feminist frameworks offer in light of such responses? We will examine how hermeneutic injustice and racist stereotypes have been replicated within the discourse and how we, as members of the wider yoga community, can resist such injustice and allow our increased understanding to prevent further harm.
Each topic will be supported with case studies as evidence to give students an idea of the wide spread and varied nature of abuse within yoga communities. Case studies will include the lawsuits brought against Bikram Choudhury and Bikram Yoga from 2013 onwards; testimonies from former members of the Satyananda Yoga Mangrove Mountain Ashram, recorded by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse from 2013-17; a 2016 lawsuit brought again Jivamukti Yoga and allegations beyond these named organisations.
Content warnings will be given when talking about specific case studies, when necessary.
This PodCourse focuses specifically on Spiritual Abuse in Modern Yoga and is divided into three modules:
Module 1: Definitions and Framings
In the first module, we will consider: what is Spiritual Abuse; why is it important to understand the definition of Spiritual Abuse in relation to yoga and how can we think about it, critically? We will consider a brief survey of the field and some key case studies in the 20th and 21st century.
Module 2: Discourse
In the second module, we will examine how instances and allegations of abuse have been received and talked about in the media, on social media, and within yoga communities. We will cover things such as victim blaming, the use of spiritual language to silence, pre- and post- #metoo, and what role academia has played. We will intersect spiritual abuse and race: how has the discourse around abuse cases reinforced or dismantled racist stereotypes?
Module 3: Resisting Injustice
As members of the yoga community, as yoga teachers, practitioners or academics, we will consider how we can we resist injustice in light of abuse revelations. What are organisations attempting to do? We will think about spiritual abuse on a structural and interpersonal level, using ideas such as hermeneutic and epistemic injustice and look at examples of those who have resisted injustice.
After taking this course you will:
This course presents categorisations of yoga and gender from the Indian tradition and puts these into productive tension with theorisations of gender as found in critical studies.
– Ruth Westoby
This PodCourse is the first in a series entitled Yoga and Gender: Concepts, Histories, Impacts taught by Ruth Westoby, PhD Candidate at SOAS University of London.
‘Yoga and Gender: Concepts, Histories, Impacts’ is an introduction to gender in yoga. The course articulates key conceptual frameworks in gender studies drawing on categories articulated in the Indian tradition and putting these into productive tension with theorisations of gender as found in critical studies. Using these frameworks we will ask how gender impacts the techniques and practices available to female and male practitioners in the premodern period. Turning to the lived experiences of yoga—across both the premodern and modern periods—how does gender influence practitioners historically and socially?
This PodCourse focuses specifically on ‘concepts’ and is divided into three modules:
Gender in yoga has been little researched. New research is illuminating specific ways in which gender impacts yoga. This course offers a response to the inquiries of yoga enthusiasts about gender and yoga. The course introduces yoga and gender through theoretical or conceptual approaches. The course presents categorisations of yoga and gender from the Indian tradition and puts these into productive tension with theorisations of gender as found in critical studies.
The course unpacks gender and yoga through Indian theoretical concepts of soteriology or liberation in life or beyond life, questions the construction of time and history in how we approach yoga, considers gender as a coordinate in accounts of the creation of the world and philosophy, and lays out how gender and purity are approached in legal sources. The course dives deep into conceptions of sexuality, soteriology and social status to ask how gender delimits the practices of yoga available to women and men. A productive demarcation for the types of yoga available to women are worldviews directed towards renunciation from society and worldviews focused on social engagement. We also engage questions of gender essentialism and masculinity.
To reflect on yoga and gender from contemporary critical theoretical approaches the course introduces a broad range of critiques: orientalism, decolonialisation, post-colonialism, neoliberalism, gender construction and performativity, and critical race theory. Finally the course brings together Indian philosophy and practices of yoga as philosophic therapy to make an ambitious argument for this type of work being a practice of yoga.
The learning outcomes anticipated for this course are:
