Selling Yoga

From Counterculture to Pop Culture

Andrea Jain

• Departs from conventional approaches to the history and development of yoga
• Explains how yoga entrepreneurs constructed yoga in unique ways that enabled it to undergo popularization in the context of consumer culture
• Provides examples of how popularized yoga can also serve religious functions

Selling Yoga

From Counterculture to Pop Culture

Andrea Jain

Description

Selling Yoga

From Counterculture to Pop Culture

Andrea Jain

Table of Contents

Selling Yoga

From Counterculture to Pop Culture

Andrea Jain

Author Information

Selling Yoga

From Counterculture to Pop Culture

Andrea Jain

Reviews and Awards

Selling Yoga

From Counterculture to Pop Culture

Andrea Jain

From Our Blog

Is yoga Hindu?

Given that we see yoga practically every­where we turn, from strip-mall yoga studios to advertisements for the Gap, one might assume a blanket acceptance of yoga as an acceptable consumer choice. Yet, a growing movement courts fear of the popularization of yoga, warning that yoga is essentially Hindu.

Posted on January 16, 2015

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On the notion of a 'creator' of modern yoga

Swami Vivekananda (1863'1902) was a nineteenth-century Hindu reformer, missionary to the United States, and Indian nationalist who constructed and disseminated a system of modern yoga, which he called raja yoga. Yoga insiders and certain scholars of the history of yoga have frequently identified him as the 'creator' or 'father' of modern yoga, but that is just not accurate.

Posted on January 9, 2015

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The commodification and anti-commodification of yoga

Nearly all of us who live in urban areas across the world know someone who 'does yoga' as it is colloquially put. And should we choose to do it ourselves, we need not travel farther than a neighborhood strip mall to purchase a yoga mat or attend a yoga class.

Posted on January 2, 2015

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Is yoga religious?

Many outsiders to contemporary popularized yoga profoundly trivialize it by reducing it to a mere commodity of global market capitalism and to impotent borrowings from or 'rebrandings' of traditional, authentic religious products. In other words, according to this account, popularized yoga can be reduced to mere commodities meant to fulfill utilitarian needs or meet hedonistic desires.

Posted on December 26, 2014

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