18. Jacqueline Hargreaves | The Luminescent and Embodied Philology

In this episode, we talk with scholar-practitioner Jacqueline
Hargreaves about her work with the Hatha Yoga Project, her
unlikely background as an engineer that first brought her to
India, and her life as a nomadic yoga researcher with her partner
Jason Birch. Jacqueline shares some wonderful stories about her
work including a rare audience with Mysore's Royal Family and the
discovery of a lost manuscript thousands of miles from India in a
very unlikely place. We also discuss her upcoming online course,
YS 114 | Rāja Yoga: History, Theory, and Practice which will be
co-taught with Jason Birch.

Speaker Bio

Jacqueline Hargreaves is an Engineer, senior Yoga Teacher, and
independent researcher who examines the contemporary meeting
place between historical Yoga practices and their application in
the modern world. She is a founding member of the Journal of Yoga
Studies, a peer-reviewed academic journal, and the co-founder of
The Luminescent, an independent open-access educational platform
for publishing cutting-edge, original research from primary
sources. She has travelled throughout India for fieldwork into
the origins of Haṭhayoga and studied meditation extensively,
including mindfulness-based meditation and intensive Zen practice
in a remote part of Japan.


Hargreaves collaborates with scholars, artists, and scientists to
communicate research on both premodern and modern facets of Yoga.
Most recently, she curated the exhibition Embodied Liberation I
and II at the Brunei Gallery in London for the Hatha Yoga Project
(SOAS University of London). In collaboration with the AyurYog
Project (University of Vienna), Jacqueline curated the Untangling
Traditions series and designed a web-based visual and interactive
timeline for premodern yoga and Āyurveda. 


Hargreaves is currently producing a documentary film, which aims
to bring to life the unique content of the postural practice
preserved in an eighteenth-century Sanskrit yoga text,
Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati, through a visual reconstruction of its
extraordinary section on āsana.

Links


The Luminescent (www.theluminescent.org)

Journal of Yoga Studies (www.journalofyogastudies.org) 

Embodied Liberation - The Textual, Ethnographic and
Historical Research of the Hatha Yoga Project
(www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/embodied-liberation/) 

AyurYog Timeline (ayuryog.org/timeline) 

Hatha Yoga Project (hyp.soas.ac.uk)

Haṭhābhyāsapaddhati: A Precursor of Modern Yoga
(hathabhyasapaddhati.org)