The Yogic Studies Podcast

In this episode, we speak with Dr. George Michell, an architectural historian whose work has shaped how the field understands sacred architecture across the Deccan, from the sixth-century rock-cut and structural temples of the Early Chalukyas at Badami, Aihole, and Pattadakal to the imperial ruins of Vijayanagara at Hampi and beyond. The conversation traces Michell's path from his first encounter with India as an architecture student in the mid-1960s, through his doctoral fieldwork surv...

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Mark Singleton, Research Associate at SOAS University of London and Visiting Scholar at the University of Santiago, Spain, about his forthcoming book, Yoga Machine: Technology, Transhumanism and Transcendence (Penguin), which serves as the basis for his new live course at Yogic Studies. Dr. Singleton is one of the most influential scholars in the field of modern Yoga Studies, and returns to the podcast for the first time since Episode 15 in 2020. The convers...

In this episode, we speak with Anjali Rao, yoga educator, practitioner, and doctoral candidate at the California Institute of Integral Studies, about her recently published book, Yoga as Embodied Resistance: A Feminist Lens on Caste, Gender, and Sacred Resilience in Yoga History (North Atlantic Books, 2025). The conversation ranges widely, exploring the entangled histories of yoga, caste, and gender; the contested question of whether yoga is "Hindu"; and the rich "heterodox" traditions—...

In this episode, we speak with Anirudh Kanisetti, a public historian and award-winning author specializing in early medieval South India. We discuss his path from tech journalism and podcasting into serious historical scholarship, and explore the world of his latest book, Lords of Earth and Sea: A History of the Chola Empire (Juggernaut, 2025). Beginning with the origins of the Chola dynasty on the banks of the Kaveri river around 850 CE, we trace how a clan of humble agrarian origins rose to...

In this episode, we speak to Dr. Giacomella Orofino about her decades of research in Indo-Tibetan religious traditions, and the fieldwork she has conducted across Nepal, Bhutan, and the Himalayan regions of India. We then turn to the centerpiece of this conversation: her recently published monograph, The Dawn of Physical Yoga: Dispelling the Hindrances to Immortality (Amṛtasaṃkaṭanibarhaṇa, Tib. 'Chi med kyi 'phrang sel), published by UniorPress in 2025 and available open access. This landmar...