Free for YS members
YS Membership
Yogic Studies Book Club
- Dr. Anna Lee White
- Fall 2026 discussion: Dec 11, 2026
- Friday @ 10–11:30am PT
About the club
Welcome to the Club!
The Yogic Studies Book Club is a free reading and discussion group for students of Yogic Studies.
Each academic term—Fall, Spring, and Summer—the Club reads one book, paired with one live 90-minute discussion on Zoom. Club members also have access to the online YS Community forum, and are invited to participate asynchronously using the forum.
Students are expected to purchase their own books.
The Club is facilitated by YS Administrator, Anna Lee White. Whether you've read the entire book, or just a few chapters, all are welcome to join. We look forward to reading and discussing with you!
Fall 2026
This Term's Read: Yogalands
Yogalands: In Search of Practice on the Mat and in the World by Paul Bramadat (2025, McGill-Queen's University Press)
Scholar and longtime yoga practitioner Paul Bramadat draws on his own practice and conversations with hundreds of teachers and students across the US and Canada to explore what yoga really means to people in the modern West — its unspoken religious dimensions, its relationship to trauma, and the debates over appropriation and authenticity that shadow it.
It's the Fall Term pick for the YS Book Club, with a live discussion on Friday, Dec 11 | 10–11:30am PT.
Schedule
YS Book Club Reading Schedule
- Fall 2026 — Friday, Dec 11 | 10–11:30am PT
Yogalands: In Search of Practice on the Mat and in the World by Paul Bramadat. - Spring 2027 — To be announced.
- Summer 2027 — To be announced.
Members will have the opportunity to discuss and vote on future books.
Your facilitator
Dr. Anna Lee White
YS Administrator & Book Club Facilitator
Anna Lee completed her Ph.D. at McGill University's School of Religious Studies with a concentration in gender and women's studies. She has a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College in anthropology and South Asian studies and an M.A. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. She has lived, studied, and researched in India, including through language programs with the American Institute of Indian Studies and the University of Wisconsin–Madison's program in Varanasi. Anna Lee's research focuses on Hindu bhakti (devotional) literature in Hindi and Sanskrit from early modern North India, particularly on the history of the Rāmānandī sampradāy. She is also working on an edited volume about the Sanskrit genre of the stotra.
Anna Lee's interest in yoga spans topics from ascetics' engagement with bhakti traditions in early modern India to yoga and contemporary politics in India and North America. She hosts and facilitates the YS Book Club, bringing members together each term to read and discuss new scholarship on yoga and South Asian religions.
Join the Club!
Access to the YS Book Club is included with your YS Membership, which also gives you access to our entire catalogue of YS/BS courses–past, present, and future.
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