In Yogalands (McGill-Queen's UP, 2025), Paul Bramadat wrestles with his position as a skeptical scholar who is also a devoted yoga practitioner. Drawing from his own experience, and from conversations with hundreds of yoga teachers and students in the United States and Canada, he seeks to understand what yoga means for people in the modern West. In doing so, he addresses issues that often sit beneath the surface in yogaland: why yoga’s religious dimensions are rarely mentioned in classes; how the relationship between yoga and trauma might be reconsidered; and how yoga seems to have survived debates around nationalism, cultural appropriation, and sexual misconduct. Yogalands encourages practitioners and critics to be more curious about yoga. For insiders, this can deepen their practice, and for observers, this approach is an inspiring and unsettling model for engaging with other passionate commitments.
Paul Bramadat is director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria.
