Podcast appearances and mentions of Andrea R Jain

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. Jeff is the author of numerous books, including Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms (with Ata Anzali, Andrea R. Jain, and Erin Prophet), Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred and Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion. He is presently working on a three-volume study of paranormal currents in American history for the University of Chicago Press.

Yoga, at its core, is a spiritual practice — and companies sell top-dollar gear so you can practice it in style. Andrea R. Jain is associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis and editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. She joins host Krys Boyd to talk about modern capitalism’s stamp on ancient religious practices and the patina of social justice and self-care fueling a multimillion-dollar industry. Her book is called “Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality.”

In this episode I spoke with Andrea R. Jain, Associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis about her new book Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality, published by Oxford University Press. Our conversation explores how modern, commodified yoga serves a neoliberal agenda by containing social activism and political dissent, something she calls gestural subversion. As a religious studies scholar, Andrea takes modern yoga seriously – viewing its practitioners not as passive dupes but as people with agency – but whose identities have been shaped and formed to serve neoliberal ends. We touch on a range of topics and issues – from the “feel good” neoliberal discourse of yogaware – such as Spirtual Gangster clothing products, cultural appropriation and contested claims of spiritual “authenticity,” the global spread of capitalism where even in India neoliberal forces have led to coopting yoga for extremist and exclusionary nationalist agenda, as well as QAnon’s followers attraction to yoga. Andrea is also author of a previous book -  Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture and is currently the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Her areas of research include religion and capitalism; global spirituality and modern yoga; the intersections of gender, sexuality, and religion; and theories of religion. 

Andrea R. Jain, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, editor of the Journal of American Academy of Religion, and author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford University Press, 2014). She received her doctorate degree in religious studies from Rice University in 2010. Her areas of research include religion in late capitalist society; South Asian religions; the history of modern yoga; the intersections of gender, sexuality, and religion; and methods and theories in the study of religion. She is a regular contributor to Religion Dispatches on topics related to yoga in contemporary culture and co-chair of the Yoga in Theory and Practice Group of the American Academy of Religion.