The Abhyas Lecture Series

There is the body and then there is the idea of the body!

The Abhyas Lecture Series provides a forum to start conversations about the body: the elemental body as the substance of self-transformation, body as a site of experience, body as a mode of communication, body as bed of memories, body as subject, the abject body, body as object, body as word, body as code, body as resistance, body as image, body as mirror, body as possibility, body as impossibility and so on.

Considering that Abhyas is a space devoted to embodied practices, our aim is to place the material body at the center, assert its autonomy and substantiate its infinite sensitivity and innate intelligence through discourse. And equally, identify, examine and challenge the popular ideas of the body that may be principally body-dismissive, including the Cartesian idea that privileges “mind over body”, or pre-modern doctrines that dismiss the body as maya. Sheer ideas, which have all same historically succeeded in both overwhelming and undermining the body.

The Lecture Series invites experts, scholars, practitioners, policy makers, and critical thinkers from the fields of history, philosophy, literature, art, performance, aesthetics, politics, anthropology, linguistics, critical studies etc to discuss texts, concepts, popular commentaries, narratives and discourses that influence the understanding, experience, seeing, and image making of and by the body.