Conference Programme

 
Download the programme in pdf format here.
 
All sessions will take place at
Hotel Wyspiański, ul. Westerplatte 15, 31-033 Kraków
 
Please refrain from taking video- and audio recordings of the sessions, as this could mean infringement of the speakers' rights.
 
Thursday 19.05.16 
 
8.00-9.00 – Conference registration
 
9.00-9.30 – Formal opening 
Tomasz Sikora, Head of the Institute for the Study of Religions, Jagiellonian University
Elizabeth De Michelis, Modern Yoga Research, YDYS Organizing Committee 
Matylda Ciołkosz, Institute for the Study of Religions, Chair of the YDYS Organizing Committee 
 
Session  1 - The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor 
Chair: Federico Squarcini
9.30-10.00 - Or try this: the alternative practices offered in the "vā" section of Pātañjali's Yoga Sūtra, Chapter One
Naomi Worth, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
10.00-10.30 - Abhiniveśa: a historical and literary study
Frederick M. Smith, University of Iowa, Iowa City
10.30-11.00 - The intertextual transposition of the term ‘yoga' in a classical context
Karen O'Brien-Kop, SOAS, London
 
Session  2 - The Legenda Hall, 3rd Floor 
Chair: Jason Birch
9.30-10.00 - Gurus and their mutual relationships
Tomáš Avramov, University of South Bohemia, Ceske Budejovice
10.00-10.30 - Modern jaina yoga in historical context
Christopher Chapple, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles
10.30-11.00 - Redefining Jain Yoga in Manonuśāsanam
Samani Pratbha Pragya, SOAS, London
 
11.00-11.30 – Break
 
11.30-13.00 – Keynote Session 1; The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor
Michel Angot (EHESS, Paris) and Philipp Maas (University of Vienna)
Chair: Dominik Wujastyk
TRADITIONS: ‘General patterns of emergence of sanskritic traditions, with special reference to problems of authorship in relation to the Yogasūtra/Pātañjalayogaśāstra'
 
13.00-14.30 – Lunch
 
Session 3 - The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor
Chair: Robert Czyżykowski
14.30-15.00 - Buddha's rejection of early brahminic yoga soteriology and the (in)significance of it throughout the history of East Asian Buddhism
Kamil Nowak, Jagiellonian University, Kraków
15.00-15.30 - On the process of internalization of the enlightened other in devata yoga and buddhānusmṛti
Jarosław Zapart, Jagiellonian University, Kraków
15.30-16.00 - Insight transformed: the Indian vicissitudes of modern Burmese Mindfulness
Daniel M. Stuart, University of South Carolina, Columbia
16.00-16.30 - Let the sādhus talk. Ascetic practitioners of yoga in Northern India
Daniela Bevilacqua, SOAS, London
 
Session 4 - The Legenda Hall, 3rd Floor
Chair: Marzenna Jakubczak
14.30-15.00 - Buddhi, ahaṃkāra, manas in the teaching of yoga in Mahābhārata XII.203-210
Kenji Takahashi, Kyoto University and Leiden University
15.00-15.30  - Yoga and ritual in the Kirātaparvan (Mbh 3.37-3.42)
Christopher Gibbons, University of Queensland, Brisbane
15.30-16.00 - A lesser-Known flavour of yoga: the Jñānayoga chapter of the Śivadharmottara
Paolo Magnone, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan
16.00-16.30  - Introduction to the Dharmaputrikā
Christèle Barois, University of Vienna
 
16.30-17.00 – Break
 
Session 5 - The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor
Chair: Paolo Magnone
17.00-17.30 - The misfortunes of samādhi: on Patañjali's attitude to mystic powers
Dominik Wujastyk, University of Alberta, Edmonton
17.30-18.00 - Prayogasandhi in old javanese texts and its sanskrit antecedents
Andrea Acri, Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre, ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, and Nalanda University, Rajgir
18.00-18.30 - Yogic dialectic: where yoga is the pacification of all views
Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munich
18.30-19.00 - The yoga of the Mataṅgapārameśvaratantra
Jean-Michel Creismeas, University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle 
 
Session 6 - The Legenda Hall, 3rd Floor
Chair: Frederick Smith
17.00-17.30 - Kuṇḍalinī concept in Malayalam works of Nārāyaṇa Guru
Hanna Urbańska, University of Wrocław
17.30-18.00 - Guru-induced samādhi : samādhi in the Satsangijivanam
Peter Schreiner, University of Zürich
18.00-18.30  - Contemporary Sāṃkhyayoga: Contributions of Hariharānanda Āraṇya and Kāpil Maṭh to modern yoga
Knut A. Jacobsen, University of Bergen
18.30-19.00 - Sāṃkhya-Yoga tradition in Kāpil Maṭh: the question of identity of a revived philosophical school
Marzenna Jakubczak, Pedagogical University of Kraków
 
 
Friday 20.5.16 
 
8.30-9.00 – Conference registration
 
Session 7 - The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor
Chair: Daniela Bevilacqua
9.00-9.30 - Visual and material evidence for the development of haṭhayoga in the sixteenth century: sculpted reliefs of ascetics in complex non-seated āsanas at Hampi
Seth Powell, Harvard University, Cambridge
9.30-10.00 - Out of devotion to the Nāths: paintings of eighty-four āsanas from Rājasthān
Gudrun Buhnemann, The University of Wisconsin-Madison
10.00-10.30 - Yesudian and yoga in Hungary 1937-1948: text, context, image and identity
Cathryn Keller, Independent scholar and Museum consultant
 
Session 8 - The Legenda Hall, 3rd Floor
Chair: Marzenna Czerniak-Drożdżowicz
9.00-9.30  - Term "yoga" in the Vishishta-Advaita-Vedanta tradition
Ruzana Pskhu and Natalia Safina, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Moscow
9.30-10.00 - Gnosis as samādhi: Vidyāraṇya's integration of yogic praxis with Advaita Vedāntic gnoseology
James Madaio, University of Manchester and Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
10.00-10.30  - Signs of death in haṭhayogic texts
Lubomír Ondračka, Charles University, Prague
 
10.30-11.00 – Break
 
11.00-12.30 – Keynote Session 2; The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor
James Mallinson (SOAS, London) and Jason Birch (SOAS, London)
Chair: Gudrun Buhnemann
TRANSMISSIONS: ‘A History of Physical Yoga Practice, with a Focus on Inversions'
 
12.30-14.00 – Lunch
 
Session 9 - The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor 
Chair: Lubomír Ondračka
14.00-14.30 - The essential image in Sabhapati Swami's lifework and an inquiry into its resemblance to Bengali yogic practice
Keith Edward Cantú, University of California, Santa Barbara
14.30-15.00 - Yogic practice in the tradition of the Tantric (sahajiyā) Vaiṣṇavism in Bengal
Robert Czyżykowski, Jagiellonian University, Kraków
15.00-15.30 - Incorporating globalised modern yoga into a local Hindu tradition of sainthood: the case of "Loknath Yoga" in contemporary West Bengal (India)
Raphaël Voix, CNRS, Centre d'Etude de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud, Paris
15.30-16.00 - Kuṇḍalinī yoga and women: Śākta temples to streaming services
Sravana Borkataky-Varma, Rice University, Houston
 
Session 10 - The Legenda Hall, 3rd Floor
Chair: Suzanne Newcombe
14.00-14.30  - Yoga and space in Turkey I: the forced disenchantment of the yoga space in Turkey
Aysuda Kölemen, Istanbul Kemerburgaz University
14.30-15.00 - Yoga and space in Turkey II: teaching yoga in a hostile context; the development of niches in the Turkish case
Alexandre Toumarkine, Orient-Institut Istanbul
15.00-15.30  - Yoga and space in Turkey III: the anatolianization of yoga
Till Luge, Orient-Institut Istanbul
 
15.30/16.00-16.30 – Break
 
Session 11 - The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor
Chair: Kamil Nowak
16.30-17.00 - The demography of early modern yoga in the United States
Philip Deslippe, University of California, Santa Barbara
17.00-17.30 - History of yoga in the USSR
Sergey Pakhomov, St. Petersburg State University
17.30-18.00 - Yoga and Theosophy in Finland
Matti Rautaniemi, Åbo Akademi University, Turku
18.00-18.30 - Adaptation or appropriation: the reception of the philosophy and practice of yoga in 20th century European esotericism
Olaf Stachowski, Jagiellonian University, Kraków
 
Session 12 - The Legenda Hall, 3rd Floor 
Chair: Mark Singleton
16.30-17.00 - Yoga family: from Calcutta to "Hot Yoga"
Jerome Armstrong, George Mason University, Fairfax
17.00-17.30  - Practicing philosophy: performing the Yogasūtra in modern postural yoga
Laura von Ostrowski, FAU Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nürnberg
17.30-18.00 - Proprioception over dogma. Sources of authority and standards of orthopraxy in Iyengar Yoga
Matylda Ciołkosz, Jagiellonian University, Kraków
18.00-18.30  - Yoga and Women in the Iyengar Yoga Tradition
Agi Wittich, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
 
 
20.30 – Artistic event
Jon Hughes (University of York) &  Kimberly Campanello (York St John University)
Cases of sudden conversion for poetry and live electronics: A distillation of experience, fieldwork and research in yoga and tantra - performance & lecture
(Venue: Kolanko no. 6, ul. Józefa 17, Kraków)
 
 
Saturday 21.05.16
 
8.30-9.00 – Conference registration
 
Session  13 - The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor
Chair: Raphaël Voix
9.00-9.30 - Academic yoga and contemplation studies: a survey and some reflections
Elizabeth De Michelis, Independent scholar
9.30-10.00 - Scholars and authority in modern yoga
Borayin Larios, University of Heidelberg
 
10.00-10.30 – Break
 
10.30-12.30 – Keynote Session 3 – Round Table; The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor 
Christopher Chapple (Loyola Maryont University), Ulrich Pagel (SOAS, London), Federico Squarcini (Università Ca'Foscari, Venezia), Dagmar Wujastyk (University of Vienna), Michel Angot (EHESS, Paris)
Chair: Mark Singleton
TRANSFORMATIONS: 'Yoga and the Academy: Approaches and Issues'
 
12.30 – 14.00 lunch
 
Session 14 - The Złoty Róg Hall, 2nd Floor
Chair: Matylda Ciołkosz
14.00-14.30 - Trust, authenticity and inspiration:  an exploration of kayakalpa/ rasayana practices among modern and contemporary yoga practitioners
Suzanne Newcombe, Inform, London School of Economics
14.30-15.00 - The social role of medical descriptions in postural yoga
Beatrix Hauser, Bremen University
15.00-15.30 - Yoga science or science for yoga?
Claudia Wanessa Poletto and Regina Dantas, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
 
Session 15 - The Legenda Hall, 3rd Floor
Chair: Elizabeth De Michelis
14.00-14.30 - Aesthetic experience and yoga practice
Noora-Helena Korpelainen, University of Helsinki
14.30-15.00 - Karma yoga, dance mandalas and liquid gold: the culture and impact of post-traditional British yoga camps
Theo Wildcroft, The Open University, UK
15.00-15.30  - Yoga as synthesis. Yoga as revival. Eugeniusz Polończyk's vision of yoga
Agata Świerzowska, Jagiellonian University, Kraków
 
15.30-16.00 – Formal closing
Mark Singleton, Modern Yoga Research, YDYS Organizing Committee 
Suzanne Newcombe, Modern Yoga Research, YDYS Organizing Committee
Robert Czyżykowski, Deputy Head of the Institute for the Study of Religions, YDYS Organizing Committee