Anya Foxen's Books

Inhaling Spirit

Harmonialism, Orientalism, and the Western Roots of Modern Yoga

By: Anya P. Foxen

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Inhaling Spirit

Harmonialism, Orientalism, and the Western Roots of Modern Yoga

By: Anya P. Foxen

Recent scholarship has shown that modern postural yoga is the outcome of a complex process of transcultural exchange and syncretism. This book doubles down on those claims and digs even deeper, looking to uncover the disparate but entangled roots of modern yoga practice. Anya Foxen shows that some of what we call yoga, especially in North America and Europe, is genealogically only slightly related to pre-modern Indian yoga traditions. Rather, it is equally, if not more so, grounded in Hellenistic theories of the subtle body, Western esotericism and magic, pre-modern European medicine, and late-nineteenth-century women's wellness programs. The book begins by examining concepts arising out of Greek philosophy and religion, including Pythagoreanism, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Galenic medicine, theurgy, and other cultural currents that have traditionally been categorized as "Western esotericism," as well as the more recent examples which scholars of American traditions have labeled "metaphysical religion." Marshaling these under the umbrella category of "harmonialism," Foxen argues that they represent a history of practices that were gradually subsumed into the language of yoga. Orientalism and gender become important categories of analysis as this narrative moves into the nineteenth century. Women considerably outnumber men in all studies of yoga except those conducted in India, and modern anglophone yoga exhibits important continuities with women's physical culture, feminist reform, and white women's engagement with Orientalism. Foxen's study allows us to recontextualize the peculiarities of American yoga--its focus on aesthetic representation, its privileging of bodily posture and unsystematic incorporation of breathwork, and above all its overwhelmingly white female demographic. In this context it addresses the ongoing conversation about cultural appropriation within the yoga community.

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Page Count

337

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190082755

ISBN 13

9780190082758

Biography of a Yogi

Paramahansa Yogananda and the Origins of Modern Yoga

By: Anya P. Foxen

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Biography of a Yogi

Paramahansa Yogananda and the Origins of Modern Yoga

By: Anya P. Foxen

With over four million copies in print, Paramahansa Yogananda's autobiography has served as a gateway into yoga and alternative spirituality for North American practitioners since 1946. Balancing traditional yoga, metaphysical spirituality, and a flair for the stage, Yogananda inspired countless people to practice Yogoda, his own brand of yoga. His method combined the spiritual and superhuman aspirations of Indian traditions with the health-oriented sensibilities of Western practice. Because the Yogoda program does not rely on recognizable postures and poses, it has remained under the radar of yoga scholarship. Biography of a Yogi examines Yogananda's career and Yogoda in the wider context of the development of yoga in the twentieth century. Focusing on Yogis during this early period of transnational popularization, Foxen highlights the continuities in the concept of the Yogi as superhuman and traces the transformation of yoga from a holistic and spiritual practice to its present-day postural practice.

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Page Count

265

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190668040

ISBN 13

9780190668044

Is This Yoga?

Concepts, Histories, and the Complexities of Modern Practice

By: Anya Foxen,Christa Kuberry

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Is This Yoga?

Concepts, Histories, and the Complexities of Modern Practice

By: Anya Foxen,Christa Kuberry

This book provides a rigorously researched, critically comparative introduction to yoga. Is This Yoga? Concepts, Histories, and the Complexities of Contemporary Practice recognizes the importance of contemporary understandings of yoga and, at the same time, provides historical context and complexity to modern and pre-modern definitions of yogic ideas and practices. Approaching yoga as a vast web of concepts, traditions, social interests, and embodied practices, it raises questions of knowledge, identity, and power across time and space, including the dynamics of "East" and "West." The text is divided into three main sections: thematic concepts; histories; and topics in modern practice. This accessible guide is essential reading for undergraduate students approaching the topic for the first time, as well as yoga teachers, teacher training programs, casual and devoted practitioners, and interested non-practitioners.

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