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Joseph S Alter

University of Pittsburgh, Asian Studies Center, Faculty Member

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Address: Director, Asian Studies Center
UCIS Research Professor and
Professor of Anthropology
Academic Director, Pitt in the Himalayas
4107 Wesley W.Posvar Hall
230 S. Bouquet Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Phone: 412-648-7370
Fax: 412-624-4665

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Papers by Joseph S Alter

The Ethics of Yoga and the Spirit of Godmen

Social Analysis

Drawing on Weber's classic study of religion, salvation, and the motivation to be a successfu... more Drawing on Weber's classic study of religion, salvation, and the motivation to be a successful capitalist, this article problematizes the relationship among competition and the embodiment of success in the practice of yoga in modern India. Contemporary postural yoga has been popularized in ways that fetishize the body and the relation between the body and enlightenment. It has become a sign of self-realization in a mode that reflects the possibility of transcendence. So-called godmen in India, who embody this possibility, popularize yoga in different ways. Contrasting Swami Sivananda's brand of twentieth-century yoga in the context of Nehruvian modernity with Baba Ramdev's yoga as an expression of free market religious nationalism, this article examines the work that embodied competition does in different ideological contexts.

Editorial Foreword

Journal of Asian Studies

Editorial Foreword

The Journal of Asian Studies

Press. I will therefore take this opportunity to thank Ann Avouris, Executive Publisher and Head ... more Press. I will therefore take this opportunity to thank Ann Avouris, Executive Publisher and Head of Journals North America at Cambridge University Press, for her dedication to and support for the mission of The Journal of Asian Studies. With her guidance and oversight, the journal has extended its global impact as a leading source of scholarly inquiry in the field of Asian studies. I also thank the production team at Cambridge University Press for their outstanding work, especially during the transfer of editorial responsibilities from the University of California, Irvine, to the University of Pittsburgh. Change invites reflection. As The Journal of Asian Studies transitions from Cambridge University Press to Duke University Press, I am reminded of how peer review functions to expand horizons of inquiry rather than to simply reinforce established perspectives. Peer review involves "opening windows" to provide critical insight, even though it can seem like an exercise in gatekeeping. My responsibility is to open windows to challenge perspectives, and the most rewarding aspect of the editorial work I do is realized through collaboration: collaboration with the associate editors and a vast network of scholars to encourage excellence by means of reviews that provide incisive, constructive criticism. Expanding horizons and encouraging experimental, creative work without compromising standards demands critical reflection on how collaboration works and how scholarly networks are operationalized to structure the peer review process. Very effective and efficient internet search tools using keywords make it simple to identify scholars with precise kinds of disciplinary and topical expertise. But this can result in sharpened perspectives that narrow the significance of arguments instead of highlighting points that connect well with broader concerns and interests. In other words, the efficiency of being able to identify scholars with comparable expertise from all over the world can make for expansive inclusion on one level, while it can also produce exclusion and tunnel vision on the level of peer review of any given manuscript. It is for this reason, among others, that the associate editors of The Journal of Asian Studies play a critical role, and why the diversity of the Editorial Board matters. Diversity has always mattered, but it matters now in a way that ensures expansive, networked inclusion rather than the identification of experts based on narrowly defined specialized skills and topical interests. Diversity matters on multiple levels. It is both intrinsically valuable, and it is valuable as a means by which to not only open windows but see things in a new light. As an editor, I have learned that pragmatic and mundane considerations often limit perspectives. Peer review depends on volunteer service by overworked, and often underappreciated, colleagues at institutions that demand more and more alienating labor from them. Very often, prospective reviewers decline invitations because they have other overriding commitments, making it even more important to broaden perspectives to deepen the pool. Inclusive diversity creates the broadest possible network of shared expertise and works as a powerful counterweight to alienation within the structures of the academy. In my experience, this is what organizations such as the Association for Asian Studies provide. The challenge for the Editorial Board of The Journal of Asian Studies is to reflect the diversity of AAS membership, and to encourage greater diversity within the structure of the association. During this period of transition from Cambridge University Press to Duke University Press, I am collecting data to better understand the range of diversity among the membership. The point is to develop strategies to reflect this diversity at all stages of the peer review process and to make changes to procedures to take full advantage of the range of expertise manifest in the membership of the AAS.

Rethinking the History of Medicine in Asia: Hakim

Missionaries and Their Medicine: A Christian Modernity for Tribal India (review)

The Catholic Historical Review, 2011

Schumacher proposes the following three periods for the evolution of the Church in the Philippine... more Schumacher proposes the following three periods for the evolution of the Church in the Philippines: 1570–1650 (first evangelization), 1650–1700 (maturing Church), and 1700–1768 (full blossoming of the Church).The last he calls the “golden age,”because, during this period, more and more Filipinos took active part in church life—shown by their spiritual practice, the emergence of religious life for men and women (the beatas and the beaterios), and the creation of the Filipino secular clergy. However, this blossoming came to an abrupt end with the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768.A vacuum resulted. The religious were reshuffled, and secular priests were hastily ordained, with the outcome of a poor public perception of the Filipino clergy because of their lack of proper training.

Editorial Foreword

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2022

Chapter 10: Yoga, Nature Cure and “Perfect” Health: The Purity of the Fluid Body in an Impure World

Yoga in Transformation, 2018

Pahalwan Baba Ramdev: Wrestling with yoga and middle-class masculinity in India

Modern Asian Studies, 2020

In the view of many people, Baba Ramdev embodies the practice of modern yoga in twenty-first cent... more In the view of many people, Baba Ramdev embodies the practice of modern yoga in twenty-first century India. A tremendously successful entrepreneur, infamous ‘godman’ with political ties, and a highly visible TV personality, he is also a vocal supporter of pahalwani (Indian wrestling) as a way of life and of wrestling in India as a national sport. Beyond sponsorship of tournaments and support for a new professional wrestling league, he promotes a form of modern, nationalistic masculinity that draws on the ‘ideals’ of yoga, competitive athleticism, ‘Hindu’ conceptions of embodied power, and fetishized Vedic asceticism. In complex and often contradictory ways, Baba Ramdev's embodiment of these ideals shapes the bio-morality of wrestlers as they train, compete, and endorse his products. Critically analysed in terms of gender theory, his sponsorship of wrestling belies deep contradictions in religious nationalism, middle-class modernity, and in the gendered morality of both wrestling...

Mountain Temples and Temple Mountains: Architecture, Religion, and Nature in the Central Himalayas. By Nachiket Chanchani. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. xiii, 271 pp. ISBN: 9780295744513 (cloth)

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2020

Nisargopchar Ashram: Gandhi’s Legacy and Public Health in Contemporary India

Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India, 2019

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a staunch advocate for nature cure. He promoted the use of earth, ... more Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a staunch advocate for nature cure. He promoted the use of earth, air, sunlight, water and diet not only to treat medical problems but also as an integral feature of a programme for comprehensive public health reform. As such, Gandhi conceptualised healthcare as an encompassing, biomoral project designed to produce Swaraj in the broadest sense of the term. Nature cure was, in other words, fundamental to sarvodaya as a form of praxis. This essay focusses on Gandhi’s establishment of Nisargopchar, a nature cure ashram in the Uruli Kanchan village, and the conceptualisation of the ashram within the framework of the constructive programme and rural development more broadly. This focus not only highlights fundamental tensions and contradictions of social class within the Gandhian project but also sheds light on the way in which Gandhi’s vision of biomoral reform provides a perspective on how these contradictions and tensions, which are especially visible in...

Gattungswesen – The Ecology of Species-Being. Alienation, Biosemiotics, and Social Theory

Anthropos, 2015

Nature cure treatment in the context of India's epidemiological transition

Journal of Integrative Medicine, 2016

Scholars have argued that theoretical insights of critical medical anthropology should be applied... more Scholars have argued that theoretical insights of critical medical anthropology should be applied to the analysis of complementary and alternative medicine in order to develop more critically engaged integrative medicine. In this essay we focus on nature cure in the context of India's contemporary epidemiological transition as an example of why engaged integrative medicine is important for public health, and how the institutionalization of nature cure treatment in India provides a critical framework for the development of programs focused on holistic treatment and prevention. After providing an overview of the epidemiological transition in contemporary India, we develop this argument through an examination of illustrative cases in a clinic that operates within the structure of India's Central Council for Research on Yoga and Naturopathy. Based on a review of recent history and contemporary practice we describe how a system of medicine that makes use exclusively of air, earth, sunlight, water and food has been institutionalized and professionalized in India. Whereas biomedical treatment for chronic non-communicable diseases is focused on the problem of curing individual diseases, nature cure establishes a regimen of personalized public healthcare for the integrated management of symptoms. We argue that nature cure is based on an ecological understanding of health, thus providing treatment that reflects a broad appreciation for the risk factors that characterize India's current crises of public health.

Review: Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture by Andrea R. Jain

Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2016

The Muslim Brotherhood is associated, perhaps especially in the West, with the desire to institut... more The Muslim Brotherhood is associated, perhaps especially in the West, with the desire to institute an Islamic form of government. For much of its history, the organization existed under authoritarian regimes, and thousands of Brothers were tortured or executed by the state. In the 1970s, the Brotherhood renounced violence, which led disaffected members who still hoped to overthrow the government to break away and create terrorist groups. In the 1980s and 1990s, Hosni Mubarak's regime experimented with political liberalization, and Wickham's most vital contribution here is charting Muslim Brothers' responses to the opportunity to become more involved in political processes. Wickham finds that many Muslim Brothers who participated adopted a gradualist view toward the Islamic reformation of society. They argued a slow transformation would ensure that these changes would not contravene the will of the people because over a long period of time Islamists would rationally persuade them to adopt their ideas, which, Wickham notes, are only partially formed in Muslim Brotherhood writings. This vision thus creates a mechanism by which complete Islamization, whatever that would entail, would always be far in the future. Wickham clearly was mid-project when the Arab Spring occurred. Perhaps for this reason, a chapter on Muslim Brotherhood organizations in Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco feels out of place. Nevertheless, this book provides a useful foray into the internal debates occurring in those movements and thus lends layers of complexity to the overall argument.

Sienna R. Craig. 2012. Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press pp. 321 pages. Paperback. ISBN-13: 978-0520273245

World Medical & Health Policy, 2013

Chapter 1. Gandhi’s Body, Gandhi’s Truth

Sex, Diet, and the Politics of Nationalism, 2000

RACHEL BERGER. Ayurveda Made Modern: Political Histories of Indigenous Medicine in North India, 1900-1955

The American Historical Review, 2015

Yoga in Asia--Mimetic History: Problems in the Location of Secret Knowledge

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 2009

... One could, of course, start into the set of ques-tions outlined above with reference to the m... more

Yoga and Physical Education: Swami Kuvalayananda's Nationalist Project

Asian Medicine, 2007

In the 1920s, Jagannath G. Gune adopted the tide Swami Kuvalayananda and established a research c... more In the 1920s, Jagannath G. Gune adopted the tide Swami Kuvalayananda and established a research centre for the scientific analysis of yoga in Lonavala, a hill station near Pune. Gune's training under Rajrama Manikrao had been in 'traditional' athletics and gymnastics, as these were understood to be the means by which to promote a form of strong, masculine, assertive anti-colonial nationalism. However, once Gune became the disciple of the sage Madhavadasji, and received training in āsana and prdāṇāyāma, he began to reconceptualise the logic of physical education and physical fitness. For Kuvalayananda, yoga was inherently scientific, but also in need of scientific analysis to prove its relevance in the context of modernity. Based on laboratory research on the physiological effects of āsana and prdāṇāyāma, and by virtue of his appointment as the director of physical education and sports in the Bombay Presidency, Kuvalayananda developed a 'scientific' regimen of bot...

Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China. Foreword by J oseph S. A lter . (Asia: Local Studies/Global Times, number 10.)

The American Historical Review, 2005

ties to restrict their activities. Mengin argues that these activities reconfigure power beyond t... more ties to restrict their activities. Mengin argues that these activities reconfigure power beyond the dichotomous reach of state sovereignty. As might be expected from a conference volume, the "blurring of frontiers" that is summed up across a discrete set of empirical studies adds up to a fuzzy picture. Each empirical chapter forms a snapshot in and of itself, but the compilation mainly reinforces the impression that Chinese excel at forming networks that cross official boundaries but also that the resources that enable individuals and groups to do so are unevenly distributed, leaving some, such as unemployed workers, in an invidious and marginalized situation. Overall, the volume reminds the social scientist of the contrasting cosmologies that Joseph Needham attributed to the West and to China: the former sees the world as a complex mechanism working in accord with transcendent Laws of Nature given by a divine legislator, while the Chinese see the world as a complex jigang or seamless web of relations and forces constantly reshaping itself through an endless displacement of nodes and connections. This reality of a networked China has come more clearly into focus as artificial attempts to impose both order and disorder have receded into the historical background.

Biosemiotics and Religion: Theoretical Perspectives on Language, Society and the Supernatural

Theory, Culture & Society, 2021

An anthropological perspective on biosemiosis raises important questions about sociality, ecology... more An anthropological perspective on biosemiosis raises important questions about sociality, ecology and communication in contexts that encompass many different forms of life. As such, these questions are important for understanding the problem of religion in relation to social theory, as well as understanding our collective, biosocial animal history and the development of human culture, as an articulation of power, on an evolutionary time scale. The argument presented here is that biosemiotics provides a framework for extending Talal Asad’s genealogical critique of religion to culture more broadly, providing an important perspective on power in relation to communication and in relation to the ‘supernatural’ attributes of language in a multi-species environment of signs and sign relationships.

The Ethics of Yoga and the Spirit of Godmen

Social Analysis

Drawing on Weber's classic study of religion, salvation, and the motivation to be a successfu... more Drawing on Weber's classic study of religion, salvation, and the motivation to be a successful capitalist, this article problematizes the relationship among competition and the embodiment of success in the practice of yoga in modern India. Contemporary postural yoga has been popularized in ways that fetishize the body and the relation between the body and enlightenment. It has become a sign of self-realization in a mode that reflects the possibility of transcendence. So-called godmen in India, who embody this possibility, popularize yoga in different ways. Contrasting Swami Sivananda's brand of twentieth-century yoga in the context of Nehruvian modernity with Baba Ramdev's yoga as an expression of free market religious nationalism, this article examines the work that embodied competition does in different ideological contexts.

Editorial Foreword

Journal of Asian Studies

Editorial Foreword

The Journal of Asian Studies

Press. I will therefore take this opportunity to thank Ann Avouris, Executive Publisher and Head ... more Press. I will therefore take this opportunity to thank Ann Avouris, Executive Publisher and Head of Journals North America at Cambridge University Press, for her dedication to and support for the mission of The Journal of Asian Studies. With her guidance and oversight, the journal has extended its global impact as a leading source of scholarly inquiry in the field of Asian studies. I also thank the production team at Cambridge University Press for their outstanding work, especially during the transfer of editorial responsibilities from the University of California, Irvine, to the University of Pittsburgh. Change invites reflection. As The Journal of Asian Studies transitions from Cambridge University Press to Duke University Press, I am reminded of how peer review functions to expand horizons of inquiry rather than to simply reinforce established perspectives. Peer review involves "opening windows" to provide critical insight, even though it can seem like an exercise in gatekeeping. My responsibility is to open windows to challenge perspectives, and the most rewarding aspect of the editorial work I do is realized through collaboration: collaboration with the associate editors and a vast network of scholars to encourage excellence by means of reviews that provide incisive, constructive criticism. Expanding horizons and encouraging experimental, creative work without compromising standards demands critical reflection on how collaboration works and how scholarly networks are operationalized to structure the peer review process. Very effective and efficient internet search tools using keywords make it simple to identify scholars with precise kinds of disciplinary and topical expertise. But this can result in sharpened perspectives that narrow the significance of arguments instead of highlighting points that connect well with broader concerns and interests. In other words, the efficiency of being able to identify scholars with comparable expertise from all over the world can make for expansive inclusion on one level, while it can also produce exclusion and tunnel vision on the level of peer review of any given manuscript. It is for this reason, among others, that the associate editors of The Journal of Asian Studies play a critical role, and why the diversity of the Editorial Board matters. Diversity has always mattered, but it matters now in a way that ensures expansive, networked inclusion rather than the identification of experts based on narrowly defined specialized skills and topical interests. Diversity matters on multiple levels. It is both intrinsically valuable, and it is valuable as a means by which to not only open windows but see things in a new light. As an editor, I have learned that pragmatic and mundane considerations often limit perspectives. Peer review depends on volunteer service by overworked, and often underappreciated, colleagues at institutions that demand more and more alienating labor from them. Very often, prospective reviewers decline invitations because they have other overriding commitments, making it even more important to broaden perspectives to deepen the pool. Inclusive diversity creates the broadest possible network of shared expertise and works as a powerful counterweight to alienation within the structures of the academy. In my experience, this is what organizations such as the Association for Asian Studies provide. The challenge for the Editorial Board of The Journal of Asian Studies is to reflect the diversity of AAS membership, and to encourage greater diversity within the structure of the association. During this period of transition from Cambridge University Press to Duke University Press, I am collecting data to better understand the range of diversity among the membership. The point is to develop strategies to reflect this diversity at all stages of the peer review process and to make changes to procedures to take full advantage of the range of expertise manifest in the membership of the AAS.

Rethinking the History of Medicine in Asia: Hakim

Missionaries and Their Medicine: A Christian Modernity for Tribal India (review)

The Catholic Historical Review, 2011

Schumacher proposes the following three periods for the evolution of the Church in the Philippine... more Schumacher proposes the following three periods for the evolution of the Church in the Philippines: 1570–1650 (first evangelization), 1650–1700 (maturing Church), and 1700–1768 (full blossoming of the Church).The last he calls the “golden age,”because, during this period, more and more Filipinos took active part in church life—shown by their spiritual practice, the emergence of religious life for men and women (the beatas and the beaterios), and the creation of the Filipino secular clergy. However, this blossoming came to an abrupt end with the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1768.A vacuum resulted. The religious were reshuffled, and secular priests were hastily ordained, with the outcome of a poor public perception of the Filipino clergy because of their lack of proper training.

Editorial Foreword

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2022

Chapter 10: Yoga, Nature Cure and “Perfect” Health: The Purity of the Fluid Body in an Impure World

Yoga in Transformation, 2018

Pahalwan Baba Ramdev: Wrestling with yoga and middle-class masculinity in India

Modern Asian Studies, 2020

In the view of many people, Baba Ramdev embodies the practice of modern yoga in twenty-first cent... more In the view of many people, Baba Ramdev embodies the practice of modern yoga in twenty-first century India. A tremendously successful entrepreneur, infamous ‘godman’ with political ties, and a highly visible TV personality, he is also a vocal supporter of pahalwani (Indian wrestling) as a way of life and of wrestling in India as a national sport. Beyond sponsorship of tournaments and support for a new professional wrestling league, he promotes a form of modern, nationalistic masculinity that draws on the ‘ideals’ of yoga, competitive athleticism, ‘Hindu’ conceptions of embodied power, and fetishized Vedic asceticism. In complex and often contradictory ways, Baba Ramdev's embodiment of these ideals shapes the bio-morality of wrestlers as they train, compete, and endorse his products. Critically analysed in terms of gender theory, his sponsorship of wrestling belies deep contradictions in religious nationalism, middle-class modernity, and in the gendered morality of both wrestling...

Mountain Temples and Temple Mountains: Architecture, Religion, and Nature in the Central Himalayas. By Nachiket Chanchani. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. xiii, 271 pp. ISBN: 9780295744513 (cloth)

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2020

Nisargopchar Ashram: Gandhi’s Legacy and Public Health in Contemporary India

Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India, 2019

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a staunch advocate for nature cure. He promoted the use of earth, ... more Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a staunch advocate for nature cure. He promoted the use of earth, air, sunlight, water and diet not only to treat medical problems but also as an integral feature of a programme for comprehensive public health reform. As such, Gandhi conceptualised healthcare as an encompassing, biomoral project designed to produce Swaraj in the broadest sense of the term. Nature cure was, in other words, fundamental to sarvodaya as a form of praxis. This essay focusses on Gandhi’s establishment of Nisargopchar, a nature cure ashram in the Uruli Kanchan village, and the conceptualisation of the ashram within the framework of the constructive programme and rural development more broadly. This focus not only highlights fundamental tensions and contradictions of social class within the Gandhian project but also sheds light on the way in which Gandhi’s vision of biomoral reform provides a perspective on how these contradictions and tensions, which are especially visible in...

Gattungswesen – The Ecology of Species-Being. Alienation, Biosemiotics, and Social Theory

Anthropos, 2015

Nature cure treatment in the context of India's epidemiological transition

Journal of Integrative Medicine, 2016

Scholars have argued that theoretical insights of critical medical anthropology should be applied... more Scholars have argued that theoretical insights of critical medical anthropology should be applied to the analysis of complementary and alternative medicine in order to develop more critically engaged integrative medicine. In this essay we focus on nature cure in the context of India's contemporary epidemiological transition as an example of why engaged integrative medicine is important for public health, and how the institutionalization of nature cure treatment in India provides a critical framework for the development of programs focused on holistic treatment and prevention. After providing an overview of the epidemiological transition in contemporary India, we develop this argument through an examination of illustrative cases in a clinic that operates within the structure of India's Central Council for Research on Yoga and Naturopathy. Based on a review of recent history and contemporary practice we describe how a system of medicine that makes use exclusively of air, earth, sunlight, water and food has been institutionalized and professionalized in India. Whereas biomedical treatment for chronic non-communicable diseases is focused on the problem of curing individual diseases, nature cure establishes a regimen of personalized public healthcare for the integrated management of symptoms. We argue that nature cure is based on an ecological understanding of health, thus providing treatment that reflects a broad appreciation for the risk factors that characterize India's current crises of public health.

Review: Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture by Andrea R. Jain

Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2016

The Muslim Brotherhood is associated, perhaps especially in the West, with the desire to institut... more The Muslim Brotherhood is associated, perhaps especially in the West, with the desire to institute an Islamic form of government. For much of its history, the organization existed under authoritarian regimes, and thousands of Brothers were tortured or executed by the state. In the 1970s, the Brotherhood renounced violence, which led disaffected members who still hoped to overthrow the government to break away and create terrorist groups. In the 1980s and 1990s, Hosni Mubarak's regime experimented with political liberalization, and Wickham's most vital contribution here is charting Muslim Brothers' responses to the opportunity to become more involved in political processes. Wickham finds that many Muslim Brothers who participated adopted a gradualist view toward the Islamic reformation of society. They argued a slow transformation would ensure that these changes would not contravene the will of the people because over a long period of time Islamists would rationally persuade them to adopt their ideas, which, Wickham notes, are only partially formed in Muslim Brotherhood writings. This vision thus creates a mechanism by which complete Islamization, whatever that would entail, would always be far in the future. Wickham clearly was mid-project when the Arab Spring occurred. Perhaps for this reason, a chapter on Muslim Brotherhood organizations in Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco feels out of place. Nevertheless, this book provides a useful foray into the internal debates occurring in those movements and thus lends layers of complexity to the overall argument.

Sienna R. Craig. 2012. Healing Elements: Efficacy and the Social Ecologies of Tibetan Medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press pp. 321 pages. Paperback. ISBN-13: 978-0520273245

World Medical & Health Policy, 2013

Chapter 1. Gandhi’s Body, Gandhi’s Truth

Sex, Diet, and the Politics of Nationalism, 2000

RACHEL BERGER. Ayurveda Made Modern: Political Histories of Indigenous Medicine in North India, 1900-1955

The American Historical Review, 2015

Yoga in Asia--Mimetic History: Problems in the Location of Secret Knowledge

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 2009

... One could, of course, start into the set of ques-tions outlined above with reference to the m... more

Yoga and Physical Education: Swami Kuvalayananda's Nationalist Project

Asian Medicine, 2007

In the 1920s, Jagannath G. Gune adopted the tide Swami Kuvalayananda and established a research c... more In the 1920s, Jagannath G. Gune adopted the tide Swami Kuvalayananda and established a research centre for the scientific analysis of yoga in Lonavala, a hill station near Pune. Gune's training under Rajrama Manikrao had been in 'traditional' athletics and gymnastics, as these were understood to be the means by which to promote a form of strong, masculine, assertive anti-colonial nationalism. However, once Gune became the disciple of the sage Madhavadasji, and received training in āsana and prdāṇāyāma, he began to reconceptualise the logic of physical education and physical fitness. For Kuvalayananda, yoga was inherently scientific, but also in need of scientific analysis to prove its relevance in the context of modernity. Based on laboratory research on the physiological effects of āsana and prdāṇāyāma, and by virtue of his appointment as the director of physical education and sports in the Bombay Presidency, Kuvalayananda developed a 'scientific' regimen of bot...

Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China. Foreword by J oseph S. A lter . (Asia: Local Studies/Global Times, number 10.)

The American Historical Review, 2005

ties to restrict their activities. Mengin argues that these activities reconfigure power beyond t... more ties to restrict their activities. Mengin argues that these activities reconfigure power beyond the dichotomous reach of state sovereignty. As might be expected from a conference volume, the "blurring of frontiers" that is summed up across a discrete set of empirical studies adds up to a fuzzy picture. Each empirical chapter forms a snapshot in and of itself, but the compilation mainly reinforces the impression that Chinese excel at forming networks that cross official boundaries but also that the resources that enable individuals and groups to do so are unevenly distributed, leaving some, such as unemployed workers, in an invidious and marginalized situation. Overall, the volume reminds the social scientist of the contrasting cosmologies that Joseph Needham attributed to the West and to China: the former sees the world as a complex mechanism working in accord with transcendent Laws of Nature given by a divine legislator, while the Chinese see the world as a complex jigang or seamless web of relations and forces constantly reshaping itself through an endless displacement of nodes and connections. This reality of a networked China has come more clearly into focus as artificial attempts to impose both order and disorder have receded into the historical background.

Biosemiotics and Religion: Theoretical Perspectives on Language, Society and the Supernatural

Theory, Culture & Society, 2021

An anthropological perspective on biosemiosis raises important questions about sociality, ecology... more An anthropological perspective on biosemiosis raises important questions about sociality, ecology and communication in contexts that encompass many different forms of life. As such, these questions are important for understanding the problem of religion in relation to social theory, as well as understanding our collective, biosocial animal history and the development of human culture, as an articulation of power, on an evolutionary time scale. The argument presented here is that biosemiotics provides a framework for extending Talal Asad’s genealogical critique of religion to culture more broadly, providing an important perspective on power in relation to communication and in relation to the ‘supernatural’ attributes of language in a multi-species environment of signs and sign relationships.

Female Ascetics in Hinduism; The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States; Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls: Popular Goddess Worship in West Bengal:Female Ascetics in Hinduism;The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States;Offering Flowers, Feeding Sk...

American Anthropologist, 2006

... Rayna Rapp, Marilyn Strathern, Janelle Taylor, Kath Weston, and especially Janet Carsten, sub... more

The Life of a Text: Performing the Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas

Anthropological Quarterly, 1993

Aging, in India, for Example (Cohen's No Aging in India: Alzheimer’s, the Bad Family, and Other Modern Things ): No Aging in India: Alzheimer's, the Bad Family, and Other Modern Things

Current Anthropology, 2000

God-botherers and other true-believers: Gandhi, Hitler, and the religious right - By F.G. Bailey

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2010

Sinister Yogis—in the Eye of the Beholder. David Gordon White. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. 376pp. ISBN: 978-0226895147 (pbk). $25

Religions of South Asia, 2012

In the Presence of Sai Baba: Body, City, and Memory in a Global Religious Movement by Smriti Srinivas

American Ethnologist, 2011

Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations:Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations

American Ethnologist, 1997

Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions:Knowledge and the Scholarly Medical Traditions

American Ethnologist, 1997

Modernity and Identity: Asian Illustrations. ALBERTO GOMES, ed

American Ethnologist, 1995

Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice

The Journal of Asian Studies, 1994

Himalayan Space: Cultural Horizons and Practices

The Journal of Asian Studies, 2001

Friends, Brothers ans Informants: Fieldwork Memoirs of Banaras. By Nita Kumar. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. xi, 271 pp. $35.00 (cloth); $13.00 (paper)

The Journal of Asian Studies, 1993

Movies, Masculinity and Modernity: An Ethnography of Men's Filmgoing in India. By Steve Derne. Greenwood Press, 2000. 212 pp. Cloth, $59.95

Social Forces, 2001

... their Indian identity, their sexuality, their ambivalence about the west, their ideas about l... more

The Savage Freud and Other Essays on Possible and Retrievable Selves. ASHIS NANDY

Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations:Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations

Amer Ethnologist, 1997

Disenchanting India: Organized Rationalism and Criticism of Religion in India by Johannes Quack

American Anthropologist, 2014

Himalayan Space: Cultural Horizons and Practices

J Asian Stud, 2001

we start out in a culture that existed before we did, we participate in it for a while as we tran... more we start out in a culture that existed before we did, we participate in it for a while as we transform it and it transforms us, and the culture continues after we are gone. Exploring Borders compels readers to take seriously the responsibility to engage one another in the spirit of understanding and caring, to leave behind a cultural world that has greater potential to thrive after we have left it.

Nationalizing the Body: The Medical Market, Print and Daktari Medicine , written by Projit Bihari Mukharji

Asian Medicine, 2014

Asian Medicine and Globalization

Moral Materialism

Knowing Dil Das

Yoga in Modern India

The Wrestler's Body: Identity and Ideology in North India

The Journal of Asian Studies, 1993

... In Banaras, they are: Lakshmi Kant Pande, Govardan Das Malhotra, Jatindar Kumar Pathak, Naray... more

Pitt in the Himalayas -- Study Abroad Program in India