Mark Singleton Yoga Machine: Technology, Transhumanism, and Transcendence
About this episode
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 conversation ranges widely, from the ancient to the contemporary. We begin by exploring the surprising breadth of the Sanskrit word yoga in its earliest dictionary definitions, where it encompasses a wide range of mundane "technologies"—raising the question of whether yoga might be understood, in its most etymologically expansive sense, as a near-synonym of the Ancient Greek technē, the root of our word "technology." We discuss how even the premodern, "classical" forms of yoga share certain aspirations with what we today call transhumanism—augmentation, enhancement, morphological freedom, and the pursuit of immortality—and what is at stake for practitioners invested in yoga's spiritual and liberatory dimensions when yoga is reframed as technology.
We discuss the proliferating landscape of "smart" yoga technologies, yoga's curious double role in the modern cultural imagination—positioned simultaneously as an ancient technology and as an antidote to the ravages of modernity—and how AI is reshaping that landscape in ways that may have surprising historical antecedents. We close by reflecting on why all this matters for yoga teachers and practitioners, and what students can expect from Dr. Singleton's new online course, YS 139 | Yoga Machine: Technology, Transhumanism, and Transcendence.
Dr. Mark Singleton, author of Yoga Body, examines yoga as technology: ancient yoga and techne, transhumanism, smart yoga devices, and neuroscience.
View the course
MSDr. Mark Singleton is a Research Associate at SOAS University of London and Visiting Scholar at the University of Santiago, Spain. He is one of the foremost scholars of the history of yoga, and the author of several books including Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice (Oxford University Press, 2010) and Roots of Yoga (co-authored with James Mallinson, Penguin, 2017), as well as numerous edited volumes and articles. From 2014–2020 he served as Senior Research Fellow at SOAS, where he was a core member of the Haáąha Yoga Project, a major European Research Council-funded initiative to document the history of haáąhayoga in India and across the globe. His forthcoming book, Yoga Machine: Technology, Transhumanism, and Transcendence, will be published by Penguin.
Links & further reading
- YS 139 | Yoga Machine: Technology, Transhumanism, and Transcendence
- Yoga Machine: Technology, Transhumanism and Transcendence (forthcoming Penguin, 2027).
- Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice (Oxford University Press, 2010)
- Roots of Yoga, co-authored with James Mallinson (Penguin, 2017)
- Episode 15 | Mark Singleton | Yogic Studies Podcast (2020)
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