RT Book
T1 Inhaling spirit: harmonialism, orientalism, and the western roots of modern yoga
A1 Foxen, Anya P. 1986-
LA English
PP New York, NY
PB Oxford University Press
YR 2020
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1677678313
AB "This book follows up on recent findings that modern postural yoga is the outcome of a complex process of transcultural exchange and syncretism and digs even deeper, looking to uncover the disparate but entangled roots of contemporary yoga practice. In doing so, it proposes that some of what we call yoga, especially when it comes to North America and Europe, is only slightly genealogically related to pre-modern Indian yoga traditions. Rather, they are equally if not more grounded in Hellenistic theories of the subtle body, Western esotericism and magic, pre-modern European medicine, and late-nineteenth-century women's wellness programs. Marshalling these under the umbrella category of "harmonialism," the present book argues that they constitute a history of analogous practices that were gradually subsumed into the language of yoga. This allows us to fundamentally recontextualize the peculiarities of Western, and especially certain mainstream American form of yoga-their focus on aesthetic representation, their privileging of bodily posture and unsystematic incorporation of breathwork, and above all their overwhelmingly privileged female demographics. The initial chapters of the book lay out the basic shape and history of these concepts and practices, while the later chapters explore their development into a spiritualized form of women's physical culture over the course of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, including the ways in which they became increasingly associated with yoga"
NO Includes bibliographical references and index
CN RA781
SN 9780190082734
K1 Exercise
K1 Physical fitness for women
K1 Hatha Yoga
K1 Yoga : History