Joe Alter

Joseph S. Alter is the Director of the Asian Studies Center and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh.  He is also the editor of The Journal of Asian Studies (2021 – 2025).  For the past fifteen years he has been leading study abroad programs focused on health and ecology in the Himalayas.  His research is on environmental health, biodiversity, the globalization of Asian medical knowledge and the cultural history of Yoga’s development within the institutionalized structure of Nature Cure in contemporary India.  Having published on Yoga in relation to sexuality, athleticism and ayurvedic medicine, he is currently studying the way in which Yoga and Nature Cure establish an “ecology of the body” within the rubric of Public Health.  His recent book length publications include, Yoga in Modern India (Princeton, 2004), Moral Materialism (Penguin 2011), and Capturing the Ineffable: An Anthropology of Wisdom (Toronto 2020, with Dr. Philip Kao).