Course description
This course studies the global expansion of yoga in the 20th century. The aim is to show how a cultural good, part of a long and complex history, has become a transnational, international, globalized good during the modern period. The course studies the mechanics of expansion and the various ways of appropriating and adapting yoga world-wide. The re- importation of global yoga back to India is a challenging feature of modern exchange processes. Paradigmatic examples of the expansion of yoga in modernity illustrate how the Indian culture deals with this globalized yoga today.
We shall start with a concise history of yoga in India, then move towards the study of the modern period to analyze the role of paradigmatic figures who wished to bring yoga to the world at the end of 19th century (for ex., Vivekananda). Simultaneously, Western figures who travelled East to learn yoga and Indian spiritual techniques (for ex. theosophy) are examined in the light of cultural transfers. Case studies shall shed light on the various forms of exportation of yoga and its adaptations to become a world-wide good for health and cure. Each context offers different histories, a variety of contexts in various countries will be studied.
The students learn to understand what yoga means in the Indian context and view its long history; further they will learn to analyze how an Indian cultural good (yoga), becomes a transnational commodity; they comprehend and understand the processes of export, adaptation, transformation, and of cultural translations. They are familiarized with the perspective of the Connected History and transnational flows.

Unit topics for one semester of 12/24 classes: for each subject, the students will be provided with primary literature and analytical literature.

History of Indian yoga and historiography of the study of yoga
Reading of various primary sources to understand the Indian Yoga

19th century India: social and political set up of the colonial situations
The transformations of the Indian society in the set-up of colonial encounter
Study of contacts in the field of yoga
The interest of Theosophy for Indian spirituality
Vivekananda’s travel to America, Parliament of religions and the counter-mission and the foundation of a first yoga retreat in USA

The pioneering figures of export yoga in the beginning of 20th century
Autobiography of P. Yogananda
Sivananda and the Devine Life Society
The exchanges with Western movements: Lebensreform, gymnastics

India’s masters of yoga change
T. K. V. Krishnamachary and the Mysore Yoga
The Bengal Heritage and wrestling (B. N. Choudhary); Lonavla Institute of scientific yoga (Swami Kuvalayananda) Yoga and the question of Indian nationalism (Baba Ramdev)

Export yoga and the international flow
The major figures between 1960 to today (for example, Mahesh Yogi, Osho, P. Jois, B. K. Iyengar)
Exchanges forth and back: the example of L. Reymond and Sri Anirvan

Yoga in the West, yoga in the world
What is yoga, what has yoga become: Case studies

Evaluation
10% attendance and participation
20% individual out of class discussion with professor
30% oral presentations in class
40% written final research paper

Selected Bibliography
The bibliography sketches the horizon which students are expected to have acquired by the end of the semester. Selections from books, source texts and articles will be distributed as reading assignments according to the subjects studied.
REFERENCE BOOK : BAIER, Karl, MAAS, Philipp, PREISENDANZ, Karin, Yoga in Transformation. Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Vienna University Press and V&R, 2018.
ALTER, Joseph S., Yoga in Modern India: The Body between Science and Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.
---- Gandhi 's Body: Sex, Diet, and the Politics of Nationalism, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
BECKERLEGGE, Gwilym, Swami Vivekananda's legacy of service: A study of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006.
De MICHELIS, Elizabeth, “Modern Yoga, History and Forms,” in M. Singleton & J. Byrne, eds., Yoga in the Modern World: Contemporary Perspectives, London and New York: Routledge, 2008.
FEUERSTEIN, Georg, The Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 2002.
MALLINSON, James & Singleton, Mark, Roots of Yoga, London: Penguin Books, 2017.
MOHAN, A.G., Krishnamacharya: His Life and Teachings, Boston: Shambala, 2010.
NEWCOMBE, Suzanne, "The Development of Modern Yoga: A Survey of the Field", in Religion Compass, Vol. 3(6), 986–1002, 2009. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749- 8171.2009.00171.x/epdf
SINGLETON, Mark & Goldberg, Ellen, eds., Gurus of Modern Yoga, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
SINGLETON, Mark, Yoga Body, The Origins of Modern Posture Practice, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
SINGLETON, Mark & Byrne, Jean, eds., Yoga in the Modern World, Contemporary Perspectives, London and New York: Routledge, 2008.
STRAUSS, Sarah, Positioning Yoga: Balancing Acts Across Cultures, Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2005.
WHITE, David G., Sinister Yogis, Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009.
---- Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India, Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 1991.