This course will view the body through the lens of Indian embodied practices. Beginning with a brief study of pre-modern texts, both body-dismissive and body-reliant, the course will look into the introduction and assimilation of Western puritanism into the advocacy, pedagogy and practice of yoga and dance. It will closely trace the reconstructive processes of these practices that were adapted by leading Reformers from the mid-19th to early-20th centuries that led to the redefinition of the body and its focus within modern India. But apart from these shifts in definition, the course, in addition, will closely observe the covert switching of the "lens" through which both the body and history have come to be viewed in our times. A somatic training influenced by both yoga and dance will also be part of this course. No prerequisites required.
navtej.johar@ashoka.edu.in