A 12-hour online PodCourse with Dr Daniela Bevilacqua.

This PodCourse is the first in series on gender issues and is entitled, Female Asceticism and Yoga: A historical and ethnographic perspective taught by Daniela Bevilacqua, PhD, a post-doctoral research associate of SOAS University of London.

This PodCourse is 100% pre-recorded and the course material can be accessed at anytime, from anywhere.

This PodCourse focuses specifically on ‘Female Asceticism and Yoga’ and is divided into three modules:

Module 1: Female Asceticism from a Historical Perspective
Module 2: Female Asceticism and Embodied Practices
Module 3: Foreign and Indian Female Ascetics: A social confrontation.

Each module includes:

• A 1-hour pre-recorded lecture.
• 3 hours of self-guided study material.
• A 15-minute virtual quiz to test comprehension of all the material in this module.

This programme will take place on the YSO website (the online study platform within SOAS University of London).

By submitting payment for this PodCourse, your application will be processed by SOAS University of London administration. Access details will be sent to you once enrolment administration is complete.

A Certificate of Completion will be provided to those that successfully pass all of the assessment material in the PodCourse.

PodCourse Description

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.

Learning Outcomes

The learning outcomes anticipated for this PodCourse are:

• a clear understanding of female asceticism from a diachronic and synchronic perspective
• a solid foundation for the study of embodied practices in relation to gender issues
• to recognize the role of globalization and ‘Easternization’ in traditional ascetic milieu
• to evaluate the practice of foreign women ascetics from a social perspective