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Andrea Jain, “Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture” (Oxford UP, 2014)
Andrea Jain, “Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture” (Oxford UP, 2014)
ratings:
Length:
65 minutes
Released:
May 13, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Is yoga religious? This question has not only been asked recently by the broader public but also posed in the courts. Many argue that of course it is. The story of yoga in the popular imagination is often narrated as an ancient wisdom tradition that informs contemporary postural movements which are intricately connected and indivisible. Others contend that contemporary yoga is simply a set of health practices that have nothing to do with religion. In Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford University Press, 2014), Andrea Jain, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, helps us navigate the recent history of yoga in the west and the debates surrounding its ‘religious’ nature. Overall, what we find is that while yoga has been mediate through an emerging global consumer market and branded for strategic purposes it can still be seen to serve the function of a body of religious practice for many practitioners. In our conversation we discussed Hindu, Buddhist, Jain variations of yogic practice, Ida Craddock’s Church of Yoga, legal definitions, Iyengar Yoga, Siddha Yoga, and Anusara Yoga, Theosophists and Transcendentalists, Swami Vivikenanda’s Vedanta Society, counterculture yogis, consumer culture and the mass market, Christian Yogaphobia, the Hindu American Foundation, and the politics of yoga.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Released:
May 13, 2015
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Justin Thomas McDaniel, “The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand” (Columbia University Press, 2011): When most people think of Buddhism they begin to imagine a lone monk in the forest or a serene rock garden. The world of ghosts, amulets, and magic are usually from their mind. They may even feel some aversion to the notion that the meditative calm of ... by New Books in Buddhist Studies