Title Inhaling spirit : harmonialism, orientalism, and the western roots of modern yoga / Anya P. Foxen

Published New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

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Description 1 online resource (322 pages) Contents List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Transliteration -- Introduction: We, Other Greeks -- 1. Hot Souls, Pneumatic Bodies, and Interplanetary Journeys -- 2. Harmonic Spirits and the Music of the Spheres -- 3. Breathing for Nerve Force, Posing for Poise -- 4. Pneumatic Dancing Girls -- 5. A Nautch Girl to Teach Us Delsarte -- 6. Adaptations, Appropriations, and Aerobics -- Epilogue: Ceci n'est pas un Yogi, Redux -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index Summary "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"-- Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on March 20, 2020) Subject Exercise. Physical fitness for women. Hatha yoga. Yoga -- History Exercise Physical Fitness -- history Women's Health -- history Yoga -- history Exercise Hatha yoga Physical fitness for women Yoga Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2019036455 ISBN 9780190082765 0190082763 9780190082741 0190082747 0190082755 9780190082758

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