Call for book chapters for proposed edited book on ‘Breath, Body, and Air
in South Asia’
We invite abstracts for book chapters for a proposed edited book examining
the triad of breath, body, and air in South Asia, with a primary focus on
India. Important scholarly work in the humanities and social sciences is
increasingly engaging with the intersections of air pollution, breathing
bodies, toxicity and the environment. Simultaneously, recent research in
(medical) anthropology and the history of medicine have foregrounded breath
and the body through work on diseases such as tuberculosis and healing
traditions such as Ayurveda. This proposed edited volume seeks to bring
together the thematics of breath, body, and air, drawing on recent
developments in various disciplines and sub-fields within the social
sciences and humanities. The aim is to offer a comprehensive analysis of
the many ways in which these thematics intersect and interpolate in
different contexts in South Asia, with a keen eye toward the social and
political implications of such intersections.
Some of the questions, among others, we seek to address are:
• What does it mean to think of the material, sensuous body in terms of
breath that constantly escapes it, and how does the materiality of the body
help us reconceptualise breath?
• What kinds of individual and social bodies or worlds are fostered and
challenged through breath and/or shortness of breath; through the abundance
or lack of clean air?
• How does breath and/or air forge connections between humans and the
non-human material worlds around them?
•How do different epistemologies of the body, bodily winds and/or air
intersect in spiritual-therapeutic healing practices and traditions?
•How do ecological relationships foreground the ways in which air
reconfigures relatedness in contemporary social worlds?
• What are the implications of science, technology and policy in
quantifying air and breath for the reformulations of bodies and the spaces
they occupy?
• What are the social and political implications of various
epistemologies of the body, breath and air, and their entanglements?
• What kinds of methodological possibilities of research are opened up
by following air and breath?
We invite submissions from scholars working in the South Asian context. We
are particularly interested in contributions related to (but certainly not
limited to) the following:
• The spiritual-therapeutic practices of Yoga, Ayurveda, Tantra, Siddha
Medicine, and other such practices from the subcontinent
• Historical or contemporary work on biomedicine, biomedical practices,
and diseases especially pulmonary diseases.
• Research on environment and ecology with a focus on their social
implications.
• Science and technology studies that critically examine science,
technology and policy.
We are in discussions with Amsterdam University Press (Asian Studies), and
aim to submit the book proposal by October 2021.
*Abstract submission deadline: *15th June
· Word limit: 500 words.
· Please give a proposed title.
· Please ensure your abstract makes clear your disciplinary approach
and foregrounds at least two of the three themes of the proposed book.
· Please share your current affiliation and position details.
Editors:
Dr. Tuhina Ganguly is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology,
Shiv Nadar University, India. Her current research is on (modern postural)
yoga and epistemologies of the body. She has previously received the
Wenner-Gren Workshop Grant, and has published in the Journal of the
American Academy of Religion
Dr. Vasundhara Bhojvaid is Assistant Professor at the Department of
Sociology, Shiv Nadar University, India. Vasundhara’s current work looks at
how air pollution is effecting and effected by policies, transforming life
in urban spaces and understandings of the body. Her articles have appeared
in The Journal of Material Culture, and Cultural Anthropology
Submissions and any request for clarifications can be emailed to either:
tuhina.ganguly@snu.edu.in or vasundhara.bhojvaid@snu.edu.in
--
Vasundhara Bhojvaid, Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Sociology Department
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Shiv Nadar University
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