The Wrestler's Body tells the story of a way of life organized in terms of physical self-development. While Indian wrestlers are competitive athletes, they are also moral reformers whose conception of self and society is fundamentally somatic. Using the insights of anthropology, Joseph Alter writes an ethnography of the wrestler's physique that elucidates the somatic structure of the wrestler's identity and ideology. Young men in North India may choose to join an akhara, or gymnasium, where they subject themselves to a complex program of physical and moral fitness. Alter's...
The Wrestler's Body tells the story of a way of life organized in terms of physical self-development. While Indian wrestlers are competitive at...
Yoga has come to be an icon of Indian culture and civilization, and it is widely regarded as being timeless and unchanging. Based on extensive ethnographic research and an analysis of both ancient and modern texts, Yoga in Modern India challenges this popular view by examining the history of yoga, focusing on its emergence in modern India and its dramatically changing form and significance in the twentieth century. Joseph Alter argues that yoga's transformation into a popular activity idolized for its health value is based on modern ideas about science and medicine.
Alter...
Yoga has come to be an icon of Indian culture and civilization, and it is widely regarded as being timeless and unchanging. Based on extensive ethn...
"This rich and complex book is often moving, frequently thought-provoking."--Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "This book will become a classic. It has passion, compelling stories, sober reflection, and an incredibly artful structure that carries the reader along. Most important, like all great anthropology, the story speaks to the issue of what constitutes the human spirit. There is wisdom in this book, and for that rare gift I am grateful to Dil Das and Joseph Alter."--Paul Stoller, author of Sensuous Scholarship Dil Das was a poor farmer--an untouchable--living...
"This rich and complex book is often moving, frequently thought-provoking."--Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute "This book will bec...
"Gandhi's Body introduces Gandhi in a fresh way. . . . This book respects and at the same time revises our understandings of Indian culture, and it connects politics and culture with health, bio-discipline, and governmentality in a manner that is accessible and useful."--David Ludden, editor of Contesting the Nation "Interesting, provocative, and highly recommended."--Choice "This brilliant and infuriating book is the latest intriguing offering from one of the most original anthropologists working. . . . It offers us unpredictable and illuminating interpretations of...
"Gandhi's Body introduces Gandhi in a fresh way. . . . This book respects and at the same time revises our understandings of Indian culture, an...
Asian Medicine and Globalization Edited by Joseph S. Alter "An important collection of studies on a significant group of topics. . . . It deserves to be widely read."--Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Medical systems function in specific cultural contexts. It is common to speak of the medicine of China, Japan, India, and other nation-states. Yet almost all formalized medical systems claim universal applicability and, thus, are ready to cross the cultural boundaries that contain them. There is a critical tension, in theory and practice, in the ways regional medical systems...
Asian Medicine and Globalization Edited by Joseph S. Alter "An important collection of studies on a significant group of topics. . . . It deserves to ...
