Daniela Bevilacqua From Tapas to Modern Yoga
About this episode
In this episode, we speak with return guest and teacher Dr. Daniela Bevilacqua to discuss the publication of her latest work, From Tapas to Modern Yoga: SÄdhusā Understanding of Embodied Practices (2024). We discuss the origins of the book as part of the research and output of the infamous SOAS Hatha Yoga Project (2015-2020), her methodology as an ethnographer working in India, the various sampradÄyas, the role of yoga and the question of who are the yogis amongst sÄdhus today, and many stories and details from her years of conducting research in India.
Dr. Daniela Bevilacqua studies yoga among India's sÄdhus: NÄth, DaÅnÄmÄ«, and RÄmÄnandÄ« ascetics, tapasyÄ, and Hatha yoga in practice.
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DBDaniela Bevilacqua is an Indianist specialized in Hindu asceticism, investigated through an ethnographic and historical perspective. She received her PhD in Civilizations of Africa and Asia from Sapienza University of Rome and in Anthropology from the University of Paris Nanterre. She worked as a post-doc research fellow at SOAS, for the ERC- funded Haį¹ha Yoga Project (2015ā2020). She is currently a researcher at CRIA (ISCTE-IUL) in Lisbon as PI of the project āPerforming the Sacred: Ethnographies of Transgender Activism in the Kinnar Akharaā. She authored Modern Hindu Traditionalism in Contemporary India (Routledge 2018), From Tapas to Modern Yoga. SÄdhusā Understanding of Embodied Practices (Equinox 2024), edited volumes, and written several articles and book chapters on topics related to Hindu religious tradition, gender, and embodied practices.
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