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ADBRC Speaker Series: “Is this Yoga?: History, Translation, and the Problem with Authenticity”

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

11:30 am - 1:00 pm

What makes something “yoga”? Recent scholarship has shown that modern yoga is neither the direct continuation nor, indeed, a corruption of any single unified pre-modern tradition. Instead, like all complex cultural phenomena, it is the product of an ongoing process of reinterpretation, recombination, and synthesis.

This talk focuses on spiritual breath and movement practices as they existed in North America and Europe on the eve of yoga’s worldwide popularization at the outset of the twentieth century, and compares and contrasts them with the yogic practices of contemporary India.

It then traces the ways in which these two systems intertwined and blended to produce the global practice we call “yoga” today.

For guests in need of accommodations, please call 713-743-5050 or email adbrc@uh.edu.