I will be working with Dr Karen-O’Brien-Kop to frame trips to the British Museum, British Library and Victoria and Albert Museum to explore yoga’s material culture, and also to present critical issues in contemporary yoga.
This summer school provides an introduction to yoga studies with classes on key aspects of yoga history, philosophy and contemporary practice. The course is structured into sections: textual history, philosophy, ethnography and bodily practice, Sanskrit language, and critical thought. The history section will constitute the primary focus of study and draw on the expertise of the SOAS Haṭha Yoga Project team to survey the history of hatha yoga through Sanskrit texts. The philosophy classes will introduce students to key concepts in classical yoga and to contextual readings of the Yogasūtra of Patañjali. In the ethnography class, students will reflect on ways to analyse experience and movement in postural yoga practice. The course also provides an introduction to key terms in the Sanskrit language for yoga studies and to scholarship on critical issues in contemporary yoga.
The summer school will be taught by the research team of the Haṭha Yoga Project (Drs James Mallinson, Mark Singleton, Daniela Bevilacqua, and Jason Birch) and other specialist scholars at SOAS.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the course, a student should be able to demonstrate the ability to:
Credit
Students are usually able to obtain credits from their home institution and typically our courses receive 3 credits in the US system and 7.5 ECTS in the European system.
Assessment will be optional and will vary for each course. Participants will be provided with a certificate of attendance and a Record of Study will be available on request.
Convenor
Dr Karen O’Brien-Kop
The eleventh century Amṛtasiddhi teaches, for the first time, bodily practices that become central to haṭha yoga. The startling teachings are explained systematically, in terms of the nature of the body, the practices, and the results of the practice in this tantric Buddhist source text. In this course we will read the Sanskrit and discuss in English the section on ‘the body’ as set out in the first four chapters of the Amṛtasiddhi. The course comprises four online sessions and one in-person workshop in London.