Kickstarter project on yoga

[Dominik Wujastyk]

 Dear colleagues,

Partly at my suggestion, my friends Mark Singleton and Jim Mallinson are
trying out a completely new way of funding an indological project.  They
wish to co-author a book on the history of yoga, that they are calling *The
Roots** of Yoga*.  Rather than going to a traditional academic funding
agency, they are appealing directly to the public.  They hope that the
global public interest in yoga will result in a strong enough response to
fund the project.

Both Mallinson and Singleton will probably be known to you already as
dynamic academic authors with successful track-records of writing and
publishing in a scholarly yet accessible way.  They have made a promotional
video about their project, with supporting written narrative and
illustrations, and have submitted the appeal to the well-known funding
service, Kickstarter.com.  Their project can be viewed here:

   -  http://www.kickstarter
   .com/projects/36604121/the-roots-of-yoga-a-sourcebook-from-the-indian-tra

If you are interested in yoga, please have a look at their presentation.
Please also tell your friends, students, colleagues, and random people in
the street [?]

I am personally watching this initiative with great interest.  They have
raised nearly $5000 in just a few days since launch at Kickstarter, but
they are aiming at a larger sum that will give them the time and freedom to
do the work over the next two years.  I believe this kind of direct public
appeal has real potential to help promote and support certain subjects
within indology.  But at the moment, we have everything to learn about how
to proceed with such a funding bid and how to design an appeal to the
public that is realistic and will work.  Hats off to Jim and Mark for being
willing to be pioneers in this.

Dominik Wujastyk


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