Authors at Mala: Friday, July 9th 6:45pm

with: Stefanie Syman & Christina Hatgis

The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America

Given yoga’s popularity today, it’s hard to fathom that Americans once thought Yoga was a dangerous, soul-corrupting practice. This change in yoga’s fortunes is an enthralling story of the American genius for creative adaptation, driven by charismatic advocates, inclduing Henry David Thoreau, Pierre A. Bernard, Margaret Woodrow Wilson, Christopher Isherwood, Sally Kempton, and Indra Devi. The story takes the reader from in Emerson’s New England to New York’s suburbs between the world wars, to colonial India, post war Los Angeles, Haight-Ashbury in its heyday, and back to New York City post-9/11. Along the way, The Subtle Body dramatizes the tension in modern yoga between spirtual enlightenment and physical attainment—between religion and exercise—so that the story of yoga in America becomes the story of our efforts, as a people, to transcend ourselves.

Stefanie Syman , a literature graduate of Yale, was a founder of Feed, an early, award-winning Web magazine. She has written for The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Yoga Journal. A native of Los Angeles, she lives in Brooklyn, and has practiced yoga for more than fifteen years.