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Program

Schedule

Wednesday 27 May 2026

10:00 - 13:00 Registration & Welcome
13:30 - 14:00 Welcome & opening remarks - Raphaël Voix, Amandine Wattelier-Bricout, Suzanne Newcombe, Ruth Westoby, Theo Wildcroft, Pamela Warner, Borayin Larios
14:00 - 15:00 How is Kunḍaliṇī Conceived When She First Appears in 7th Century Scriptures of the Śaiva-Siddhānta ? - Dominic Goodall
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee break
15:30 - 17:30 Session #2: First Critical Edition of the Haṭhapradīpikā - Isabelle Ratié (Collège de France)
15:30 - 15:50 The Haṭhapradīpikā: insights into Svātmārāma's methods and purpose made possible by the new edition - James Mallinson (University of Oxford)
15:50 - 16:10 Development of the various recensions of the Haṭhapradīpikā - Mitsuyo Demoto (Philipps University of Marburg)
16:10 - 16:30 Algorithms and Philology in Dialogue: Reconstructing the Haṭhapradīpikā - Nils Jacob Liersch (Philipps University of Marburg)
16:30 - 16:50 The Weltanschauung of Yoga (yogadarśana). Between Self-Improvement and Natural Perfection. - Jürgen Hanneder (Philipps University of Marburg)
16:50 - 17:10 The Haṭhapradīpikā's Legacy in the Early Modern Period - Jason Birch (University of Alberta)
15:30 - 17:30 Session #3: Responses to Institutional Abuse - Amanda Lucia (University of California-Riverside)
15:30 - 16:00 Doubling-Down and De-Branding: Sustaining Kundalini Yoga After Revelations of Abuse - Philip Deslippe (University of California-Santa Barbara)
16:00 - 16:30 Spiritual Abuse and Sexualised Violence in Modern Transnational Yoga: Crossing the Boundaries of Knowing and Believing - Jens Augspurger (SOAS, University of London)
16:30 - 17:00 Grassroots Organising against a Perpetrator: A Case Study - Amelia Wood (SOAS, University of London)
17:00 - 17:30 Educational reform, does it work? Ten years since the Australian Royal Commission. - Jacqueline Hargreaves (SOAS, Centre of Yoga Studies)
15:30 - 17:30 Session #4: Bodies & Care, Then & Now - Fabien Provost (CNRS, Cesah)
15:30 - 15:50 The Origins of Tantra in Europe: Constructed Authority, Claimed Authenticity and Creative Adaptation - Tova Olsson (Umeå University)
15:50 - 16:10 Netī - Ancient Remedy or Modern Health Trend? - James Russell (University of Leeds)
16:10 - 16:30 Rethinking the Practicing Body: Ethnographic Insights from Situated Iyengar Yoga Practice in Japan - Endo Satoko (University of Tokyo)
16:30 - 16:50 RETHINKING CARE THROUGH YOGA : Yogatherapy & Mindfulness between Authenticity, Authority, and Adaptation in Switzerland - Valentina Salonna (Lausanne University Hospital)
16:50 - 17:10 Do you believe me because I look like this? - Firdose Moonda (Independent Scholar)
15:30 - 17:30 Session #5: Localization: Yoga in France - Véronique Altglas (Queen’s University)
15:30 - 16:00 Yoga teachers' authority: knowledge, power, and professional dynamics - Clément Petitjean (Université Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, CRIDUP)
16:00 - 16:30 What Working in the Wellness Industry Means: The Example of Yoga Teachers in France - Pierre Bataille (Université Grenoble-Alpes)
16:30 - 17:00 Teaching yoga outside cities: profiles, backgrounds, and social predispositions - Clément Cézarine (Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1)
17:00 - 17:30 Yoga and fame on Instagram: the example of influencers - Eléonore Affre-Garcia (Université Toulouse III)
18:00 - 19:00 Session #6: Book Launch: Yoga Machine: Technology, Transhumanism and Transcendence by Mark Singleton (School of Oriental and African Languages)
19:00 - 20:30 Vernissage of Dhun / Dhūnī – The Fires of the Name, followed by a Cocktail Dinner

Thursday 28 May 2026

8:30 - 10:30 Session #7: New Research in Mantras & Yoga I - Jérôme Petit (BnF, GREI)
08:30 - 09:00 Measuring Mantras, Breath, and Brahmanical Asceticism - Finnian Moore Gerety (University of Oxford)
09:00 - 09:30 OṂ in the Dharmaputrikā Saṃhitā - Christèle Barois (ERC, GREI)
09:30 - 10:00 The meaning of svādhyāya in the Pātañjalayogaśāstra and its early commentaries: Evidence from unstudied manuscript sources - Philipp Maas (Leipzig University)
10:00 - 10:30 Mantra, Temple, and the Yoginī-Affiliated Goddesses of the Devīpurāṇa - Sandra Sattler (University of Oxford)
8:30 - 10:30 Session #8: Round Table on “Products and Pedagogies” - Theo Wildcroft (Open University), Ananda Ceballos (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Martha Henson (King‘s College London), Seth Powell (Yogic Studies), Ruth McNeil (King’s College London), Jacqueline Hargreaves (SOAS, Centre of Yoga Studies)
8:30 - 10:30 Session #9: Sex, Drugs, Gemstones & Fascists - Dagmar Wujastyk (University of Alberta)
08:30 - 09:00 Yogic Transformations through Tantric Sex: Sexual Abuse v. “Religious Freedom” - Amanda Lucia (University of California-Riverside)
09:00 - 09:30 Tracing the Path of Soma: Traditions and Transformations of Amṛta in Indic Philosophy and Religion - Stuart Ray Sarbacker (Oregon State University)
09:30 - 10:00 Diamond Medicine: Authority, expertise, and healing - Patricia Sauthoff (Hong Kong Baptist University)
10:00 - 10:30 The (Alt-)Right-Hand Path: The Biopolitics of Yoga and Fascism - Emily Ward (Loyola Marymount University)
8:30 - 10:30 Session #10: Death and Yoga - Silvia D’Intino (CNRS, Anhima)
08:30 - 09:10 Can A Yogin Anticipate Death? Exploring the concept of ariṣṭa (signs of death) in the Yogasūtra - Susanta Bhattacharya (University of Krakow)
09:10 - 09:50 Samādhi and no breathing - Matthew Clark (School of Oriental and African Languages)
09:50 - 10:30 Yoga Philosophy as a Way of Death: Hariharānanda Āraṇya's Samādhi - Doron Peisic (Tel Aviv University)
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 - 12:30 Session #11: New Research in Mantras & Yoga II - Emmanuel Francis (CNRS, Cesah)
11:00 - 11:30 Myths and Colophons: Intertextual and Paratextual Strategies Asserting the Authenticity of Purāṇic Kavacas - Amandine Wattelier-Bricout (CNRS, Cesah)
11:30 - 12:00 History through Mantra: the Siddhānt Paṭal - James Mallinson (University of Oxford)
12:00 - 12:30 Yogic Dying in the Javanese-Balinese Śaiva traditions - Andrea Acri (EPHE, GREI)
11:00 - 12:30 Session #12: Jain Yoga - Nalini Balbir (EPHE-GREI)
11:00 - 11:30 Jain reception of haṭhayoga: The case of Acharya Sushil Kumar's “Jain Yoga” - Christopher Miller (University of Zürich)
11:30 - 12:00 Ahiṃsā in Practice: Jain Contributions to the Ethics of Yoga - Corinna May Lhoir (University of Hamburg)
12:00 - 12:30 Continuity and Adaptation: Authenticity, Authority, and the Making of Jain Yoga by Yaśovijaya - Alba Rodriguez Juan (University of California-Riverside)
11:00 - 12:30 Session #13: Yoga, Media and Messages - Nicolas Sihlé (CNRS, Cesah)
11:00 - 11:30 Performing Yoga in Fiction: From "Yoghis" to rNal 'byor pas—with Reference to the Earliest Tibetan Novel in a European Language - Samuel Thévoz (University of Vienna)
11:30 - 12:00 Mystical Experiences Captured in Paintings: Adaptations of Hindu Visual Culture in the First Yoga School in Chile (1930-1940) - Macarena Gonzalez (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile)
12:00 - 12:30 Reviving “True” Hinduism through Yoga: Swami Nithyananda and the Pursuit of Authority - Jaroslaw Zapart (Jagiellonian University in Kraków)
11:00 - 12:30 Session #14: Adverse Meditation and Yoga Experiences - Knut Axel Jacobsen (University of Bergen)
11:00 - 11:30 Kundalini Syndrome Narratives: Contemporary Accounts of Challenging Spiritual Practice Experiences - Jack Saxelby-Smith (The Open University)
11:30 - 12:00 The Kundalini Syndrome: Treatments at the San Francisco-based Kundalini Clinic - Marleen Thaler (University of Graz)
12:00 - 12:30 Kuṇḍalinī and the many Spiritual Emergencies - Sravana Borkataky-Varma (University of Houston) & Anya Foxen (California Polytechnic State University)
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch break
13:30 - 14:00 Plenary Session #15: Body & Mantras: Performing Somatic Research - Lucy May Constantini (University of Vienna, MANTRAMS Project)
14:00 - 16:00 Session #16: New Research on Mantras & Yoga III - Véronique Bouillier (CNRS, Cesah)
14:00 - 14:30 Soft Powers: Affect and the Re-mediation of Gaṇeśa in Transnational Bhakti Yoga - Borayin Larios (University of Vienna)
14:30 - 15:00 Visual and Material Culture of Yogis and Mantra - Seth Powell (Yogic Studies)
15:00 - 15:30 Living through mantras: mantras among contemporary Hindu ascetics - Daniela Bevilacqua (University Institute of Lisbon)
15:30 - 16:00 Not Giving a Damn: Mexican Mantras for a Postmodern Yogic Path - Adrián Muñoz (The College of Mexico)
14:00 - 16:00 Session #17: Shifting Worlds: Focal Practices - Ananda Ceballos (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
14:00 - 14:30 Discerning expertise is a fundamental human skill - Marcus Braun (Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences)
14:30 - 15:00 On the (extra)ordinariness of belts and blocks. What can extended cognition tell us about the use of props in āsana practice? - Matylda Ciołkosz (Jagiellonian University)
15:00 - 15:30 Tracing the Genealogies of Somatic Yoga - Laura Von Ostrowski (University of Hamburg)
15:30 - 16:00 Balancing act: the importance of epistemological equilibrium as an enactive skill for yoga transmission - Theo Wildcroft (Open University)
14:00 - 16:00 Session #18: Navigation of Social Change - Philip Deslippe (University of California-Santa Barbara)
14:00 - 14:30 ‘Connecting Dots: From A Search in Secret India, through Sheilaism to Saint Culture' - Suzanne Newcombe (Open University)
14:30 - 15:00 Yoga in the Times of Transition. The First Decade of Iyengar Yoga in Poland (1984-1994) - Iwona Kozlowiec (Independent researcher in Poland)
15:00 - 15:30 The Bricolage Roots of Yoga under the Polish People's Republic: Leon Zawadzki and the Dynamics of Cultural Transfer - Agata Świerzowska (Jagiellonian University in Krakow)
15:30 - 16:00 Omwashing & Yoga - Sheena Sood (Delaware Valley University)
14:00 - 16:00 Session #19: Menstruation and Yoga and Tantra - Caterina Guenzi (EHESS, Cesah)
14:00 - 14:30 From ambiguous power­ to powerful ambiguity: Menstruation among tantra practitioners in India - Monika Hirmer (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)
14:30 - 15:00 Beyond Menstruation in Yoga and Jainism - Ruth Westoby (OCHS)
15:00 - 15:30 Case Study of Menstrual Practices from Hindu Women, in Varanasi - Daphnée Dion-Carrier (Université Laval)
15:30 - 16:00 Bloating, Slowness, Heaviness: Menstrual Rhythms in the Ashtanga Movementscape - Marissa Clarke (University of Edinburgh)
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break
16:30 - 18:00 Session #20: History of Kuṇḍalinī - Ruth Westoby (OCHS)
16:30 - 17:00 The Ṣaṭcakranirṇaya: A Kashmiri Yoga Text on the Rise of Kuṇḍalinī - Nils Jacob Liersch (Philipps University of Marburg)
17:00 - 17:30 Vivekananda's Ninth Auxiliary - Scott Lamps (School of Oriental and African Studies)
17:30 - 18:00 The Serpent in the Marketplace: Global Gurus and the Competition for Authentic Kuṇḍalinī (Co-presenting with Anya Foxen) - Sravana Borkataky-Varma (University of Houston) & Anya Foxen (California Polytechnic State University)
16:30 - 18:00 Session #21: Localization: Indian Regional Traditions - Michal Panasiuk (Inalco)
16:30 - 17:00 From Manuscript to Book: A Bengali Witness to the Transmission of the Śivasaṃhitā - Peter Pasedach (University of Hamburg)
17:00 - 17:30 Is there another lotus within the Sahasrāra? - Lubomír Ondračka (University of Oxford)
17:30 - 18:00 She Whose Speech is True: The Yoga Library and Oeuvre of Om Prakash Swamigal - Keith Cantù (Harvard Divinity School)
16:30 - 18:00 Session #22: Localization: The Muslim World - Alexandre Toumarkine (Inalco, Cermom)
16:30 - 17:00 Breath, Rhythm, and Union: Dialogues of Yoga and Sufi Music in Pakistan's Spiritual Landscape - Aziz Ullah (SZABIST)
17:00 - 17:30 Mapping Discursive Shifts: Representations of Yoga in Turkish Public Discourse (1930s–2000s) - Gülnihal Özdener (Yildiz Technical University)
17:30 - 18:00 Quantum Method Yoga: Scientific Meditation and the Making of Modern Middle-Class Spiritual Selves in Bangladesh - Akhi Hossain (University of Tübingen) & Carola Lorea (University of Tübingen)
16:30 - 18:00 Session #23: Twentieth-Century Yoga - Magdalena Kraler (University of Vienna)
16:30 - 17:00 Harnessing the Mind: Yoga, Hypnotism, and Relaxation Culture in 1950s Britain - Victoria Addinall (Independent Author in UK)
17:00 - 17:30 Kripalu Yoga and the Roots of Flow: Movement, Prāṇa, and Absorption in Modern Yoga - Adriana Maldonado (Open University)
17:30 - 18:00 Come for the stretching, stay for the gods: the pedagogy, politics and power of the gods in modern postural yoga - Samuel Horsley (University of Edinburgh)
18:30 - 19:30 Plenary Session #24: Presentation and film screening: The Yoga of the Koraṇṭaka - Jason Birch (University of Alberta) and Jacqueline Hargreaves (SOAS, Centre of Yoga Studies)

Friday 29 May 2026

8:30 - 10:30 Session #25: Yoga for Śaivas: The Śivadharma tradition (7th–16th centuries) - Saarthak Singh (EFEO, GREI)
08:30 - 09:00 Translating Yoga for Śaivas: the case of the Civatarumōttaram - Renato Davalos (CNRS, Cesah)
09:00 - 09:30 Who are the Śivayogins? An investigation in Sanskrit sources - Florinda De Simini (University of Naples)
09:30 - 10:00 Who are the Śivayogins? Notes from the Tamil South - Margherita Trento (EHESS/IFP, Cesah)
10:00 - 10:30 From prāṇa to śakti—The emergence of the central channel in Tantric yoga - Judit Törzsök (EPHE, GREI)
8:30 - 10:30 Session #26: Yoga in Contemporary India I - Mark Singleton (School of Oriental and African Languages)
08:30 - 09:00 Yoga as an Academic Disciple in Indian Public Universities. The Case of the Department of Yogic Art and Science, Vishva Bharati (West Bengal) - Raphaël Voix (CNRS, Cesah)
09:00 - 09:30 Transmission of Yoga in Contemporary India: The Lakulish Yoga University - Pamela Warner (EHESS, Cesah)
09:30 - 10:00 The Political Evolution of Sri Aurobindo's Integral Yoga in Postcolonial India - Sudipta Mohanty (EHESS, Cesah)
8:30 - 10:30 Session #27: Maps, Mats, Meals & Marketing - Stuart Ray Sarbacker (Oregon State University)
08:30 - 08:54 The Map, The Territory, and the Reason for Travelling: Lessons from Yogalands - Paul Bramadat (University of Victoria)
08:54 - 09:18 Does the Mat Matter? Investigating the Materiality of Yoga Practice in the Bhagavadgītā - Adheesh Sathaye (University of British Columbia)
09:18 - 09:42 Are Onions Worse Than Meat? Modernizing Yoga Along Vegetarian Morality - Beatrix Hauser (University of Bremen)
09:42 - 10:06 Food for Non-thought: The Evolving Role of Diet in Yoga Texts - Zoe Slatoff (Loyola Marymount University)
10:06 - 10:30 Logos and Lotuses: Authority and the Cultural Work of Marketing Yoga - Christa Kuberry (FinAbility)
8:30 - 10:30 Session #28: Sites & Texts - Daniela Bevilacqua (University Institute of Lisbon)
08:30 - 09:00 Bodymind as a cognitive tool in Pratyabhijñā philosophy of nondual Śaivism of Kashmir - Anna Freud (School of Oriental and African Studies)
09:00 - 09:30 Archaeologies of Ecstasy: Yoginīs and the Hidden Histories of Yoga - Vineet Gairola (Indian Institute of Technology)
09:30 - 10:00 ‘Yogic Bhakti' in Early Modern Vernacular Nāth and Sant Literature - Hunter Hill (University of Oxford)
10:00 - 10:30 Selective Reception: Herman Walter and the Shaping of Haṭhayoga in German Indology (1890–1935) - Anja Nikodem (University of Tartu)
10:30 - 11:00 Coffee break
11:00 - 12:30 Session #29: New Research on Mantras & Yoga IV - Hugo David (EFEO)
11:00 - 11:30 Mantram, Posture and Siddhi in a South Indian Martial Art - Lucy May Constantini (University of Vienna, MANTRAMS Project)
11:30 - 12:00 Swami Sivananda's Japa Yoga: Framing Mantra Practice as a Form of Yoga - Gudrun Bühnemann (University of Wisconsin Madison)
12:00 - 12:30 Sikh Kirtan Parampara and Maryada: Dueling Claims to Authority in Revival of Sikh Music Tradition - Nirinjan Kaur Khalsa-Baker (Loyola Marymount University)
11:00 - 12:30 Session #30: Yoga in Contemporary India II - Nicolas Dejenne (USN, GREI)
11:00 - 11:30 Authenticity, Authority and Adaptation: Yoga, bhakti and the Radhsoami tradition - Diana Dimitrova (University of Montreal)
11:30 - 12:00 Mother Nation: The Healthy Female Body in Contemporary India - Ida Pajunen (University of Oxford)
12:00 - 12:30 Yoga between Authenticity and Commodification: Politics and Postcolonial Dynamics in Globalized Yoga Practices - Anna Krämer (University of Cologne)
11:00 - 12:30 Session #31: Worldviews and Contexts - Aminah Mohammad-Arif (CNRS, Cesah)
11:00 - 11:30 Towards a Typology of Yogic Worldviews - Janne Kontala (Abo Akademi University)
11:30 - 12:00 Authenticity and Authority on the Margins: The Muslim Jogis (Yogis) as Tantric Healers, Bards, and Islamic Practitioners - Mukesh Kumar (University of Zurich)
12:00 - 12:30 Desmond Dunne's “Yogism” of the 1960s: Psychologization and Secularisation of Yoga - Magdalena Kraler (University of Vienna)
11:00 - 12:30 Session #32: Polarization - Theo Wildcroft (Open University)
11:00 - 11:20 Yoga, mind and body relations. An experience of yoga in prisons, in Argentina. - Victoria D’hers (University of Buenos Aires)
11:20 - 11:40 Altar of Fire: Authenticity and Agency in Visual Anthropology - Sabbi Lall (Harvard Divinity School)
11:40 - 12:00 Can Christians Practice Yoga? - Allyson Huval (Georgetown University)
12:00 - 12:20 Yoga, Fascists, Activists and Scholars: Asymmetries of Misinformation - Daniel Simpson (Independent Scholar)
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch break
13:00 - 14:00 Guided tour of the Humathèque Research Library
13:30 - 14:00 Plenary Session #33: Oceano Respiração: Live Participatory Performance - Marissa Clarke (University of Edinburgh)
14:00 - 16:00 Session #34: Echoes of the Yogasūtra - Thibaut D’Hubert (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität)
14:00 - 14:30 How did God enter Yoga philosophy? - Knut Axel Jacobsen (University of Bergen)
14:30 - 15:00 Ethics and the authentication of authority in yogic traditions - Brett Parris (University of Oxford)
15:00 - 15:30 Realizing the Self in Integration, Not Separation: Bhakti Appropriations of the Pātañjala Yoga Model of Liberation - Eileen Goddard (University of California-Santa Barbara)
15:30 - 16:00 Rājayoga in the 17th century - Jérôme Petit (BnF, GREI)
14:00 - 16:00 Session #35: Round Table on “Expanding Epistemologies” - Ruth Westoby (OCHS), Theo Wildcroft (Open University), Dagmar Wujastyk (University of Alberta), Lucy May Constantini (University of Vienna, MANTRAMS Project), Borayin Larios (University of Vienna), Carola Lorea (University of Tübingen), Marissa Clarke (University of Edinburgh)
14:00 - 16:00 Session #36: Yoga in the US Academy - Christopher Miller (University of Zürich)
14:00 - 14:30 Academic Study of Yoga - Christopher Chapple (Loyola Marymount University)
14:30 - 15:00 Building and Maintaining an Academic Yoga Studies Program at a Publicly Funded Community College - Kari Ross-Berry (Southwestern College)
15:00 - 15:30 Yoga Studies MA program at Naropa University - Ben Williams (Associate Professor, Naropa University)
15:30 - 16:00 The Development of Sri Aurobindo Studies in Contemporary Academia: Texts, Archives, Institutions, and Transcultural Networks - Devdip Ganguli (California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco)
14:00 - 16:00 Session #37: Localization: Yoga in Scandinavia - Tova Olsson (Umeå University)
14:00 - 14:30 Conspirituality in the Finnish yoga scene - Kia Andell (Åbo Akademi)
14:30 - 15:00 Yoga Practitioners in Finland - Måns Broo (Åbo Akademi)
15:00 - 15:30 Trans and nonbinary in/visibility in Finnish yoga - Ella Poutiainen (Åbo Akademi)
15:30 - 16:00 Yoga in Norwegian Kindergartens: What is it, And Who is it For? - Marie Glasø Glein (Queen Maud University College)
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break
16:30 - 17:30 Session #38: Keynote address by Sunila Kale & Christian Novetzke: “Sovereignty, Boycott and Struggle: The Three Registers of Political Yoga” - Raphaël Voix (CNRS, Cesah)
17:30 - 18:00 Closing Remarks & Thank yous - Raphaël Voix, Suzanne Newcombe, Theo Wildcroft, Pamela Warner, Amandine Wattelier-Bricout, Ruth Westoby
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