Syllabus for Relig/CHID 120 A Su 25: Yoga: Past And Present
Course Syllabus
Yoga
Past and Present
RELIG 120/CHID 120
Summer 2025
Fully Online and Asynchronous Distance Learning Course
Kangra, c.1750, National Museum, India
Relig 120 (SLN 13269)/CHID 120 (SLN 10662)
***Note CHID 120 students register under Relig 120 as they are the same class***
Course Description
In this course, we will study mind-body yoga through its history, practice, literature, philosophy, visual culture, and politics, and we will conclude with some reflections on yoga’s potential within the realm of health and well-being, both physical and mental. From the ancient past to the modern period, we will explore essential texts and ideas, as well as the effects of class, religion, gender, race, nationalism, development, colonialism, politics, and physical culture on yoga. The long history in India of yoga reveals that this practice of imposing discipline on the body and mind was far more than a set of physical or meditative practices, but a means to reformulate social, political, and cosmic worlds as well and a way to become empowered while in the world. Practiced by people of all religions and none, mind-body yoga emerged from India to transcend any single culture while linking many cultures together. We will use online discussion, narrated slideshow lectures, video clips, films, visual media, and real-world encounters to study yoga in its most salient forms. There are no prerequisites for this course, and no previous knowledge of yoga, India, etc., is required.
Course Format and Weekly Schedule
This is an asynchronous undergraduate lecture course designed for remote online learning. All course materials are online, including lectures, films, readings, and assignments.
The summer quarter, unlike the normal quarters, is nine weeks long. This course is normally taught over ten weeks during the regular academic year. In order to accommodate the shorter time frame. of summer quarter, we have made these adjustments:
· There is no discussion due in Week 9, our last week.
· However, your final assignment is due by the end of week on Friday August 22 at 11:59pm PST.
Because of this compressed timeframe, we cannot accept your final project any later than August 22 at 11:59pm PST, and we cannot accept any other late work past this date. Anything not completed by this date will given a 0. Unfortunately, we cannot adjust this policy and also meet the UW Summer Quarter grading timeline. But remember: you can start this final project any time in the quarter. We suggest you start by the middle of the quarter, but you can begin any time you like.
Finally, you'll find that there is one week, on Yoga and Secularism in America, that is "optional" and you'll see it at the end of the module list. We had to remove this module to shorten the course to fit the summer quarter schedule. You have no assignments and no discussion associated with this module. It's just there for you if you to enjoy if you want!
Course Format and Weekly Schedule
This is an asynchronous online entry-level undergraduate lecture course designed for remote learning. All course materials are available online and accessible, including lectures, films, readings, and assignments.
Course Goals and Objectives
Goals
My goals for you in this course are that you will:
· learn the history of yoga and the conditions for its current practice by engaging with the entire history and practice of yoga beyond the confines of modern postural yoga;
· think critically and carefully about issues of religion, society, politics, law, health, art, and culture;
· endeavor to write clearly, with reference to readings and lectures, and with a point;
· interact with your colleagues and with me in the course in informed, generous, respectful and productively critical ways.
Objectives
After successfully completing this course, you will be able to:
· outline and rehearse theories of the likely origins of yoga and its key philosophical ideas;
· situate the practice of yoga in the history of India, especially amid other early religious practices;
· relate Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras to all subsequent forms of yoga, including contemporary forms;
· distinguish tantra as a unique form. of practice and identify Hatha Yoga along the evolutionary timeline of yoga in history, and discuss the Hatha Yoga Pradipika;
· observe the patterns and meanings of yoga’s visual culture, from the Medieval or “Islamicate” period of India to the present;
· locate and describe the emergence of modern postural yoga in modern India of the early nineteenth century, including an informed history of the use of yoga in Indian nationalism and the emergence of the Surya Namaskar;
· engage the unique aspects of yoga in America, particularly in relation to pluralism, religion, power, cultural appropriation, and capitalism;
· understand the legal challenges yoga has faced in the US in particular, especially in relation to secularism;
· weigh the risks and benefits of yoga in relation to recent scientific observations of yoga’s effects; and
· speculate on the enduring uniqueness of yoga in relation to the mind-body problem.