Western women yoga practitioners, yoginis, have played an essential role in the evolution, teaching, and propagation of modem yoga and are deserving of recognition previously overlooked in academic and popular literature. For millennia, yoga was an esoteric practice taught by and for select Indian men and was little known outside India. In the late nineteenth century, interest in Eastern religions and practices grew in the West and a modern form of yoga began to be brought out of India. Nine specific Western yoginis and spiritual teachers are largely responsible for this phenomenon and the resulting worldwide popularity of yoga today. This study examines these iconic women: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Genevieve Stebbins, Ruth St. Denis, Molly Bagot Stack, Indra Devi, Vanda Scaravelli, Dona Holleman, Judith Lasater, and Angela Fanner and their yoga legacies. These women, some posthumously, continue to inform and encourage ongoing re-imagining of today's yoga which, for the first time in its 5000 year history, is primarily practiced and taught by women.
","abstract_html":"<p>Western women yoga practitioners, yoginis, have played an essential role in the evolution, teaching, and propagation of modem yoga and are deserving of recognition previously overlooked in academic and popular literature. For millennia, yoga was an esoteric practice taught by and for select Indian men and was little known outside India. In the late nineteenth century, interest in Eastern religions and practices grew in the West and a modern form of yoga began to be brought out of India. Nine specific Western yoginis and spiritual teachers are largely responsible for this phenomenon and the resulting worldwide popularity of yoga today. This study examines these iconic women: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Genevieve Stebbins, Ruth St. Denis, Molly Bagot Stack, Indra Devi, Vanda Scaravelli, Dona Holleman, Judith Lasater, and Angela Fanner and their yoga legacies. These women, some posthumously, continue to inform and encourage ongoing re-imagining of today's yoga which, for the first time in its 5000 year history, is primarily practiced and taught by women.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["O'Brien Martinez, Anne"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts","degree_level":"Master's Thesis","degree_discipline":"Humanities","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Philp Novak, PhD","Leslie Ross, PhD"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2010,"date_issued":"2010-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2010-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:05:59Z","subjects":["Humanities","Arts and Humanities"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://scholar.dominican.edu/humanities-print-theses/281","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Philp Novak, PhD","Leslie Ross, PhD"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["O'Brien Martinez, Anne"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Humanities"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Master's Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Humanities","Arts and Humanities"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://scholar.dominican.edu/humanities-print-theses/281"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Western women yoga practitioners, yoginis, have played an essential role in the evolution, teaching, and propagation of modem yoga and are deserving of recognition previously overlooked in academic and popular literature. For millennia, yoga was an esoteric practice taught by and for select Indian men and was little known outside India. In the late nineteenth century, interest in Eastern religions and practices grew in the West and a modern form of yoga began to be brought out of India. Nine specific Western yoginis and spiritual teachers are largely responsible for this phenomenon and the resulting worldwide popularity of yoga today. This study examines these iconic women: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Genevieve Stebbins, Ruth St. Denis, Molly Bagot Stack, Indra Devi, Vanda Scaravelli, Dona Holleman, Judith Lasater, and Angela Fanner and their yoga legacies. These women, some posthumously, continue to inform and encourage ongoing re-imagining of today's yoga which, for the first time in its 5000 year history, is primarily practiced and taught by women.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Modern Yoginis: How Western Women Have Fundamentally Changed the Practice of Yoga"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Philp Novak, PhD","Leslie Ross, PhD"],"dc:creator":["O'Brien Martinez, Anne"],"dc:description.abstract":["Western women yoga practitioners, yoginis, have played an essential role in the evolution, teaching, and propagation of modem yoga and are deserving of recognition previously overlooked in academic and popular literature. For millennia, yoga was an esoteric practice taught by and for select Indian men and was little known outside India. In the late nineteenth century, interest in Eastern religions and practices grew in the West and a modern form of yoga began to be brought out of India. Nine specific Western yoginis and spiritual teachers are largely responsible for this phenomenon and the resulting worldwide popularity of yoga today. This study examines these iconic women: Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Genevieve Stebbins, Ruth St. Denis, Molly Bagot Stack, Indra Devi, Vanda Scaravelli, Dona Holleman, Judith Lasater, and Angela Fanner and their yoga legacies. These women, some posthumously, continue to inform and encourage ongoing re-imagining of today's yoga which, for the first time in its 5000 year history, is primarily practiced and taught by women.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://scholar.dominican.edu/humanities-print-theses/281"],"dc:subject":["Humanities","Arts and Humanities"],"dc:title":["Modern Yoginis: How Western Women Have Fundamentally Changed the Practice of Yoga"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Humanities"],"thesis:degree_level":["Master's Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Arts"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:05:59Z"}