Performing Healing: Yoga and the Body Politic

Date: March 28, 2024
Location: Bond Memorial Hall Multi-Purpose Room

Performing Healing: Yoga and the Body Politic is a symposium to bring renowned scholars of Yoga and the Performing and Visual Arts of South Asia together on Swarthmore's campus on March 28. The keynote speaker is pioneering Yoga scholar and Anthropologist Joseph Alter. Other papers explore new avenues of research on yoga, religious studies, and anthropology and their intersections with the arts, such as dance, music, and visual arts.  

Sponsored by: A Cooper Serendipity grant, a Lang Center Engaged Scholarship grant, and the Dance Department.

Schedule 

Registration and Breakfast: 9-10 a.m.

Opening Remarks
Mari S. Michener Professor of Religion Steven Hopkins and Stephen Lang Professor of Performing Arts Pallabi Chakravorty, Swarthmore College
10-10:30 a.m.

Keynote: The “Discovery” of Yoga in the Himalaya: Swami Sivananda, New Asian Connectivities and the Mythos of Orientalism
Joseph S. Alter, University of Pittsburgh
10:30-11:30 a.m.

Sanskrit and the Importance of Aurality in Yogic Practice
Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics and Asian Studies Varun Khanna, Swarthmore College
11:30-12 p.m.

Kundalini Yoga: What happens to the body/ies? 
Sravana Borkataky-Varma, University of Houston
12-12:30 p.m.

Lunch Break
12:30-2:00 p.m.

Prema Bhakti as Yoga
Pika Ghosh, Haverford College
2-2:30 p.m.

A Pluralistic Approach to the Yoga of Sound: Bridging Textual, Ethnographic and Experiential Perspectives
Vivek Virani University of North Texas
2:30-3 p.m.

Troubling the "Classical" in Yoga and Indian Dance
Anurima Banerji, University of California, Los Angeles
3-3:30 p.m.

Tea Break 
3:30-4 p.m.

Tourism and Yoga
Rumya Putcha, University of Georgia
4-4:30 p.m.

The Aesthetics of Healing as Yoga
Pallabi Chakravorty, Swarthmore College
4:30- 5 p.m.

Q and A
5-5:30 p.m.