This book is the first study to engage directly with the transformations and adaptations of yoga in the modern world. It addresses the dialectic and ideological exchange between yoga's ancient precursors and modern praxis, and the development and consolidation of yoga in global settings.

Part 1: Mapping The Terrain Of Modern Yoga Studies 1. Modern Yoga: History and Forms Elizabeth de Michelis 2. Yoga Shivir: Methodological and Ethical Problems in the Study of Modern Yoga Joseph S. Alter 3. 'Adapt, Adjust, Accommodate': The Production of Yoga in a Transnational World Sarah Strauss Part 2: Posturing For Authenticity 4. The Classical Reveries of Modern Yoga: Patañjali and Constructive Orientalism Mark Singleton 5. The Reflexivity of the Authenticity of Hatha Yoga Kenneth Liberman Part 3: Spirituality, Sexuality and Authority: Understanding the Experience of Modern Yoga Practice 6. Empowerment and Using the Body in Modern Postural Yoga Klas Nevrin 7. 'With Heat Even Iron Will Bend': Discipline and Authority in Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Benjamin Richard Smith 8. The Numinous and Cessative in Modern Yoga Stuart Ray Sarbacker 9. From Fusion to Confusion: A Consideration of Sex and Sexuality in Traditional and Contemporary Yoga Mikel Burley