Course Details

In this course we will study yoga through its history, practice, literature, and politics. From the ancient past to modern yoga, we will study essential texts and ideas, as well as the effects of class, religion, gender, nationalism, development, colonialism, politics, and physical culture on yoga. Yoga’s long history in India reveals that this practice of imposing discipline on the body and mind was far more than a set of physical or meditative practices, but a means to reformulate social, political, and cosmic worlds as well. Practiced by people of all religions and none, yoga not only transcends any single culture but it links many cultures together.