This was a live recording of an online lecture via Zoom given by Dr Debra Diamond on the 8th July 2020 for the SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies. See below for details.
The identities and practices of yoginis - mortal women and goddesses engaged with yoga - are, like those of yoga, remarkably diverse and notoriously multiple. This lecture re-examines the identification of yoginis and their contexts through three case studies: Yogini temples ca. 1000, Indo-Islamic manuscripts ca. 1600 and European print media ca. 1930.
In each instance, the yoginis remain agents of power, but take on distinctive forms and historically contingent identities as they shift contexts and emerge within different arenas of practice.
*Speaker Biography*
Dr. Debra Diamond is Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution. Her most recent exhibitions are Body Image: Art from the Indian Subcontinent (Freer, 2017), Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice Across Asia (Sackler, 2017), and Yoga: The Art of Transformation (2013-14), a cross-disciplinary exploration of the histories of yoga through its visual manifestations.
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