In-person November Annual Meeting 2026 Program Book

In the last decade, there has been renewed interest within political theology in a theory called integralism. On an integralist account, the coercive power of the state should be put at the service of the spiritual power of the church to promote a right relationship with God. What I will argue is that to the degree that integralists also identify themselves as classical theists, a contradiction emerges in how they wish to facilitate union with God. In particular, when we understand what classical theism takes to be the divine nature, we will see that the coercive methods proposed by integralism prevent humans from standing in right relation with the deity. My argument will proceed first by giving a general account of integralism, then by giving a classical theist account of the divine nature, and finally by looking at the implications of classical theism for integralism. 

As “counter-cultural” Catholicism grows in the United States, public universities are increasingly positioned as “battlegrounds for the minds and souls of young people,” and Catholic campus ministries increasingly reflect trends of theological orthodoxy and “conservative” political alignment. In this paper, I analyze data from Catholic teacher candidates in public universities in the US Midwest (n≈50) to examine: How do Catholic teacher candidates in US Midwest public universities describe their teacher education programs and their Catholic identities in relation to movements of “counter-cultural” Catholicism? I discuss how some participants oppose their public teacher education programs, describing them as “one-sided,” “biased,” and “liberal.” Others, however, align with the justice-oriented curricula in their teacher education programs and disaffiliate or “diminish the label of being Catholic” because of the perception of Catholicism as “conservative.” Through this analysis, I reflect on the implications of rising “counter-cultural” Catholicism on public university campuses for the Catholic Church.

The far-right movement known as Catholic integralism has received repeated media attention in the United States, owing in part to its connection to Vice President J.D. Vance. This paper diagnoses integralism as a politics of despair, seeking to assert for lack of persuasive power on the part of conservative Catholics, with policy planks that would need to be imposed rather than proposed. Key among them is pro-natalism which connects the largely male integralist intelligentsia to more women-oriented conservative movements such as the pro-life movement.

The testing ground for integralist politics has been (Protestant) Viktor Orban's Hungary, and despite its sponsorship of many integralist thinkers its lack of success on many stated goals demonstrates the limits of any such movement. It is difficult for reactionary authoritarian nostalgia to inspire in a world with many options. The paper will conclude by looking to the Augustinian tradition - which precisely emphasizes the limitation and eschatological nature of politics - as a potential corrective to integralism's Thomistic literalism.

This paper examines the figure of the Indian yogi in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century within the intertwined histories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology. In Western scientific and popular media, Indian yogis and fakirs were repeatedly represented as “mesmerists” (c. 1830-1860s) and later “hypnotists” (c. 1880-1920s), masters of attention and suggestion at a time when science and technology were increasingly revealing the fragility and vulnerability of the mind and will. This paper shows how the extraordinary figure of the yogi was interpreted through the new categories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology, and how the modern Western mind (and self) was understood and enacted through engagement with the yogi.  Through the yogi, Western audiences both explored and distanced themselves from the unsettling possibility that the mind is more permeable, the self more suggestible, and the will more limited than the dominant ideal of the rational, self-transparent liberal subject would admit.

This paper analyses a modern genealogy of the fearful constructions of the figure of the yogi by tracing a history of the discourses of hypnotism, brainwashing, and coercive control. It begins with a broad interrogation into how liberal fears of perceived threats to individual autonomy circulate in the United States and India. The author shows how the United States has surveilled the yogi/guru’s powers of mind control, while in Indian electoral politics they are instrumentalized. This paper concludes with the case study of a very real psychosis of an Indian businesswoman who believes herself to be “under attack” from a nefarious yogi/guru who is engaging in “black magic,” showing the intimate impact of such fearful discourses. Drawing on queer theorists who interrogate the affective impacts of fearful discourses, this paper reveals the consequences of the constructed fear of the “dangerous” yogi/guru.

There is a curious trend that appears in the teachings of several prominent twentieth-century gurus: samskaras, or mental dispositions born of accrued from the imprints of past action (karma), are increasingly articulated as residing in the energy wheels (cakras) or subtle channels (nadis) of the visionary yogic body. This is hardly out of step with modern wellness culture, which has long embraced the idea that “the body keeps the score.” But it is fairly unprecedented in pre-modern South Asian sources where such concepts generally represent two parallel, if not directly competing, models. This paper examines the key moments of innovation and synthesis in both South Asian and Euro-American sources that yielded this trend, paying especially close attention to conceptual overlap between the evolving models of Kundalini and the unconscious.

Based on ethnographic “fieldwork” conducted during a 75-hour online course on Indian, or “Vedic” astrology (also called jyotish), this paper explores how astrological thinking among yoga practitioners serves as a contemporary diagnostic language of the self, and notably a hybrid form in which jyotish is refracted through twentieth-century psychological astrology. Rather than relying on the predictive possibilities of a classically-Indic astrology, the version of jyotish taught in this course posits a Jung-inspired worldview where cosmic forces are not agents of change but archetypal energies to be adjusted, strengthened, or stirred. Here, I trace the contours of this hybridized psychological astrology–part Indian, part Jungian, and entirely compatible with the ethos of interiority and self-care that dominates the discourse of the global yoga industry. 

This paper examines the figure of the Indian yogi in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century within the intertwined histories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology. In Western scientific and popular media, Indian yogis and fakirs were repeatedly represented as “mesmerists” (c. 1830-1860s) and later “hypnotists” (c. 1880-1920s), masters of attention and suggestion at a time when science and technology were increasingly revealing the fragility and vulnerability of the mind and will. This paper shows how the extraordinary figure of the yogi was interpreted through the new categories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology, and how the modern Western mind (and self) was understood and enacted through engagement with the yogi.  Through the yogi, Western audiences both explored and distanced themselves from the unsettling possibility that the mind is more permeable, the self more suggestible, and the will more limited than the dominant ideal of the rational, self-transparent liberal subject would admit.

This paper analyses a modern genealogy of the fearful constructions of the figure of the yogi by tracing a history of the discourses of hypnotism, brainwashing, and coercive control. It begins with a broad interrogation into how liberal fears of perceived threats to individual autonomy circulate in the United States and India. The author shows how the United States has surveilled the yogi/guru’s powers of mind control, while in Indian electoral politics they are instrumentalized. This paper concludes with the case study of a very real psychosis of an Indian businesswoman who believes herself to be “under attack” from a nefarious yogi/guru who is engaging in “black magic,” showing the intimate impact of such fearful discourses. Drawing on queer theorists who interrogate the affective impacts of fearful discourses, this paper reveals the consequences of the constructed fear of the “dangerous” yogi/guru.

There is a curious trend that appears in the teachings of several prominent twentieth-century gurus: samskaras, or mental dispositions born of accrued from the imprints of past action (karma), are increasingly articulated as residing in the energy wheels (cakras) or subtle channels (nadis) of the visionary yogic body. This is hardly out of step with modern wellness culture, which has long embraced the idea that “the body keeps the score.” But it is fairly unprecedented in pre-modern South Asian sources where such concepts generally represent two parallel, if not directly competing, models. This paper examines the key moments of innovation and synthesis in both South Asian and Euro-American sources that yielded this trend, paying especially close attention to conceptual overlap between the evolving models of Kundalini and the unconscious.

Based on ethnographic “fieldwork” conducted during a 75-hour online course on Indian, or “Vedic” astrology (also called jyotish), this paper explores how astrological thinking among yoga practitioners serves as a contemporary diagnostic language of the self, and notably a hybrid form in which jyotish is refracted through twentieth-century psychological astrology. Rather than relying on the predictive possibilities of a classically-Indic astrology, the version of jyotish taught in this course posits a Jung-inspired worldview where cosmic forces are not agents of change but archetypal energies to be adjusted, strengthened, or stirred. Here, I trace the contours of this hybridized psychological astrology–part Indian, part Jungian, and entirely compatible with the ethos of interiority and self-care that dominates the discourse of the global yoga industry. 

This paper examines the figure of the Indian yogi in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century within the intertwined histories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology. In Western scientific and popular media, Indian yogis and fakirs were repeatedly represented as “mesmerists” (c. 1830-1860s) and later “hypnotists” (c. 1880-1920s), masters of attention and suggestion at a time when science and technology were increasingly revealing the fragility and vulnerability of the mind and will. This paper shows how the extraordinary figure of the yogi was interpreted through the new categories of mesmerism, hypnosis, and psychology, and how the modern Western mind (and self) was understood and enacted through engagement with the yogi.  Through the yogi, Western audiences both explored and distanced themselves from the unsettling possibility that the mind is more permeable, the self more suggestible, and the will more limited than the dominant ideal of the rational, self-transparent liberal subject would admit.

This paper analyses a modern genealogy of the fearful constructions of the figure of the yogi by tracing a history of the discourses of hypnotism, brainwashing, and coercive control. It begins with a broad interrogation into how liberal fears of perceived threats to individual autonomy circulate in the United States and India. The author shows how the United States has surveilled the yogi/guru’s powers of mind control, while in Indian electoral politics they are instrumentalized. This paper concludes with the case study of a very real psychosis of an Indian businesswoman who believes herself to be “under attack” from a nefarious yogi/guru who is engaging in “black magic,” showing the intimate impact of such fearful discourses. Drawing on queer theorists who interrogate the affective impacts of fearful discourses, this paper reveals the consequences of the constructed fear of the “dangerous” yogi/guru.

There is a curious trend that appears in the teachings of several prominent twentieth-century gurus: samskaras, or mental dispositions born of accrued from the imprints of past action (karma), are increasingly articulated as residing in the energy wheels (cakras) or subtle channels (nadis) of the visionary yogic body. This is hardly out of step with modern wellness culture, which has long embraced the idea that “the body keeps the score.” But it is fairly unprecedented in pre-modern South Asian sources where such concepts generally represent two parallel, if not directly competing, models. This paper examines the key moments of innovation and synthesis in both South Asian and Euro-American sources that yielded this trend, paying especially close attention to conceptual overlap between the evolving models of Kundalini and the unconscious.

Based on ethnographic “fieldwork” conducted during a 75-hour online course on Indian, or “Vedic” astrology (also called jyotish), this paper explores how astrological thinking among yoga practitioners serves as a contemporary diagnostic language of the self, and notably a hybrid form in which jyotish is refracted through twentieth-century psychological astrology. Rather than relying on the predictive possibilities of a classically-Indic astrology, the version of jyotish taught in this course posits a Jung-inspired worldview where cosmic forces are not agents of change but archetypal energies to be adjusted, strengthened, or stirred. Here, I trace the contours of this hybridized psychological astrology–part Indian, part Jungian, and entirely compatible with the ethos of interiority and self-care that dominates the discourse of the global yoga industry. 

The paper explores the relationship between language and world through the investigation of Zhuangzi's analysis of "indicators" (指) and in dialogue with two Indian frameworks: the Madhyamaka tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi) and the Jain seven-fold reasoning (saptabhaṅgī). Drawing on Kripkean semantics, the paper argues that thinkers across these traditions deploy modal arguments to grapple with the indeterminacy of language and reference.

The Zhuangzi radicalizes Gongsun Longzi's nominalism, in which indicators are ontologically distinguished from real things, and then applies the same logic against things themselves: if indicators cannot be indicated, referents are equally unstable. I argue that this indeterminacy structurally encompasses both Nāgārjuna's denialism and Malliṣeṇa's pluralism. Rather than choosing between them, the Zhuangzi holds both: a horse both is and is not a horse, and is neither a horse nor not a horse, depending on a perspective. Indeterminacy, on this reading, is not a failure of language but its feature.

My point of departure is the congruity of Jaina and Daoist perspectivalism. Jain philosophers hold that reality is non-one-sided (anekānta): any object of knowledge is knowable from infinite variety of viewpoints (nayas), and that no statement can provide an exhaustive account of a thing. All epistemic expressions implicitly reference one aspect (deśa) of a thing, rather than its totality.

These assumptions share remarkable similarities with Zhuangzi's “The sorting which evens things out” (Qiwulun). Like the Jain philosopher Samantabhadra, Zhuangzi saw knowledge as perspectival, that statements which express determinate knowledge are parameterized by viewpoints, and that uncareful combativeness in philosophical discourse is a major problem which should be assuaged through context-sensitivity and some way of embracing seemingly contradictory views. The paper draws these connections and explores how normative accounts of language-use in Jaina and Daoist traditions may be construed as mutually informative approaches to framing the soteriological value of dynamic perspective-shifting.

Scholars have argued that Zhuangzi's embodied form of epistemic perspectivism, which brings together contrary perspectives to form more inclusive “higher” perspectives (“larger knowledge” (大知). In this, the Zhuangzi shares remarkable similarities with the perspectivism (nayavāda) of Jaina philosophers, in which opposing perspectives are unified through a process of contextualization (syādvāda). However, Jaina philosophers ground this perspectivism on a realist objective standard. Unlike Zhuangzian perspectivism, this synchronizing perspectives depend on an objective standard for veridicality. However, the Zhaungzi rejects any such standard. Within the Zhuangzi, the world and ourselves are in a constant state of flux. Hence, any objective standard cannot be predetermined and cannot last. I argue that the Zhuangzi takes all perspectives to depend on one’s changing socio-physical embodiment, in which veridicality is determined by temporary usefulness, in contrast to the Jaina objective standard. 

The paper explores the relationship between language and world through the investigation of Zhuangzi's analysis of "indicators" (指) and in dialogue with two Indian frameworks: the Madhyamaka tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi) and the Jain seven-fold reasoning (saptabhaṅgī). Drawing on Kripkean semantics, the paper argues that thinkers across these traditions deploy modal arguments to grapple with the indeterminacy of language and reference.

The Zhuangzi radicalizes Gongsun Longzi's nominalism, in which indicators are ontologically distinguished from real things, and then applies the same logic against things themselves: if indicators cannot be indicated, referents are equally unstable. I argue that this indeterminacy structurally encompasses both Nāgārjuna's denialism and Malliṣeṇa's pluralism. Rather than choosing between them, the Zhuangzi holds both: a horse both is and is not a horse, and is neither a horse nor not a horse, depending on a perspective. Indeterminacy, on this reading, is not a failure of language but its feature.

My point of departure is the congruity of Jaina and Daoist perspectivalism. Jain philosophers hold that reality is non-one-sided (anekānta): any object of knowledge is knowable from infinite variety of viewpoints (nayas), and that no statement can provide an exhaustive account of a thing. All epistemic expressions implicitly reference one aspect (deśa) of a thing, rather than its totality.

These assumptions share remarkable similarities with Zhuangzi's “The sorting which evens things out” (Qiwulun). Like the Jain philosopher Samantabhadra, Zhuangzi saw knowledge as perspectival, that statements which express determinate knowledge are parameterized by viewpoints, and that uncareful combativeness in philosophical discourse is a major problem which should be assuaged through context-sensitivity and some way of embracing seemingly contradictory views. The paper draws these connections and explores how normative accounts of language-use in Jaina and Daoist traditions may be construed as mutually informative approaches to framing the soteriological value of dynamic perspective-shifting.

Scholars have argued that Zhuangzi's embodied form of epistemic perspectivism, which brings together contrary perspectives to form more inclusive “higher” perspectives (“larger knowledge” (大知). In this, the Zhuangzi shares remarkable similarities with the perspectivism (nayavāda) of Jaina philosophers, in which opposing perspectives are unified through a process of contextualization (syādvāda). However, Jaina philosophers ground this perspectivism on a realist objective standard. Unlike Zhuangzian perspectivism, this synchronizing perspectives depend on an objective standard for veridicality. However, the Zhaungzi rejects any such standard. Within the Zhuangzi, the world and ourselves are in a constant state of flux. Hence, any objective standard cannot be predetermined and cannot last. I argue that the Zhuangzi takes all perspectives to depend on one’s changing socio-physical embodiment, in which veridicality is determined by temporary usefulness, in contrast to the Jaina objective standard. 

The paper explores the relationship between language and world through the investigation of Zhuangzi's analysis of "indicators" (指) and in dialogue with two Indian frameworks: the Madhyamaka tetralemma (catuṣkoṭi) and the Jain seven-fold reasoning (saptabhaṅgī). Drawing on Kripkean semantics, the paper argues that thinkers across these traditions deploy modal arguments to grapple with the indeterminacy of language and reference.

The Zhuangzi radicalizes Gongsun Longzi's nominalism, in which indicators are ontologically distinguished from real things, and then applies the same logic against things themselves: if indicators cannot be indicated, referents are equally unstable. I argue that this indeterminacy structurally encompasses both Nāgārjuna's denialism and Malliṣeṇa's pluralism. Rather than choosing between them, the Zhuangzi holds both: a horse both is and is not a horse, and is neither a horse nor not a horse, depending on a perspective. Indeterminacy, on this reading, is not a failure of language but its feature.

My point of departure is the congruity of Jaina and Daoist perspectivalism. Jain philosophers hold that reality is non-one-sided (anekānta): any object of knowledge is knowable from infinite variety of viewpoints (nayas), and that no statement can provide an exhaustive account of a thing. All epistemic expressions implicitly reference one aspect (deśa) of a thing, rather than its totality.

These assumptions share remarkable similarities with Zhuangzi's “The sorting which evens things out” (Qiwulun). Like the Jain philosopher Samantabhadra, Zhuangzi saw knowledge as perspectival, that statements which express determinate knowledge are parameterized by viewpoints, and that uncareful combativeness in philosophical discourse is a major problem which should be assuaged through context-sensitivity and some way of embracing seemingly contradictory views. The paper draws these connections and explores how normative accounts of language-use in Jaina and Daoist traditions may be construed as mutually informative approaches to framing the soteriological value of dynamic perspective-shifting.

Scholars have argued that Zhuangzi's embodied form of epistemic perspectivism, which brings together contrary perspectives to form more inclusive “higher” perspectives (“larger knowledge” (大知). In this, the Zhuangzi shares remarkable similarities with the perspectivism (nayavāda) of Jaina philosophers, in which opposing perspectives are unified through a process of contextualization (syādvāda). However, Jaina philosophers ground this perspectivism on a realist objective standard. Unlike Zhuangzian perspectivism, this synchronizing perspectives depend on an objective standard for veridicality. However, the Zhaungzi rejects any such standard. Within the Zhuangzi, the world and ourselves are in a constant state of flux. Hence, any objective standard cannot be predetermined and cannot last. I argue that the Zhuangzi takes all perspectives to depend on one’s changing socio-physical embodiment, in which veridicality is determined by temporary usefulness, in contrast to the Jaina objective standard.