Sarang Raga (detail). from the Sirohi Ragamala; India, Rajasthan, Sirohi, ca. 1680–90; Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, 23.2 x 17.8 cm; Freer Gallery of Art, F1992.18.
Yoga and Visual Culture: An Interdisciplinary Symposium
Program
Thursday, November 21
6.30–6.45pm Opening Remarks
Yoga and the Sculpted Body
Vidya Dehejia, Columbia University, New York City
6.45–7.30pm Keynote Lecture
Inward Journeys: Yoga and Pilgrimage
B.N. Goswamy, Panjab University, Chandigarh
Friday, November 22
9-9.30am Coffee, Freer Conference Room
9.30–11.00am Session 1: Yoga and Place
Session Chair: Qamar Adamjee, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
Yoga as Architecture
Michael W. Meister, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
The Medieval Indian Yoga Studio: Locating Places of Practice through Architecture, Image, and Text
Tamara I. Sears, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Bhakti as Yoga: Traces of Devotional Transformation in Seventeenth-century Bengal
Pika Ghosh, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
11-11.15am Break
11.15–12.15pm Session 2: The Buddha and Yoga
Session Chair: Jessa Farquhar, University of California, Los Angeles
Holiness, Heat, and Hunger: Sculpting States of Mind
Robert DeCaroli, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
The Buddha as the Yogin: The Making of a Nationalist Art History
Sugata Ray, University of California, Berkeley
12.15–2.00pm Lunch Break
12.30-12.50pm Movement, Breath, and Silence
Twenty-minute guided practice using simple asana, pranayama, and pratyahara tools
Maryam Ovissi, owner of Beloved Yoga, Virginia
2.00–3.00pm Session 3: Tantra
Session Chair: Vidya Dehejia, Columbia University, New York City
Yogi, Jackal, and Goddess in Hindu Tantric Yoga
David Gordon White, University of California, Santa Barbara
The Yoga of the Yoginīs: Mapping the Goddesses’ Powers in Text and Image
Shaman Hatley, Concordia University, Montreal
3.00–4.00pm Session 4: Asanas & Naths
Session Chair: Debra Diamond, Freer and Sackler Galleries
From Tapas to Hard Yoga: The History of the Āsanas of Haṭha Yoga
James Mallinson, School of Oriental and African Studies, London
A Case Study of Bahr al-hayat
Carl W. Ernst, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Saturday, November 23
10.00–12.00pm Session 5: Yoga and Print Culture
Session Chair: Sita Reddy, independent scholar
Nath Yogis in Mughal and Rajasthani Painting
Rosemary Crill, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Strange and Wondrous: Early Modern European Views of Yogis
Robert J. Del Bontà, independent scholar
Austerity and Excess: Framing Contradiction in the Figure of the Indian Yogi
Hope Marie Childers, Alfred University, New York
The Yogi, the Magician, and the Scientist: Discourses of Modernity in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century Representations of Yoga and Stage Magic
Patton Burchett, New York University
12.00–1.00pm Lunch Break
1.00–2.00pm Session 6: Modern Yoga
Session Chair: Cathryn Keller, independent scholar
Visions of Patañjali as an Authority on Yoga
Gudrun Bühnemann, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Photographing the Modern Yoga Body
Mark Singleton, St. John’s College, Santa Fe
