We asked authors Simone Kotva (Ecologies of Ecstasy: Mysticism, Philosophy, and Vegetal Life, 2026), Daniel Wyche (The Care of the Self and the Care of the Other: From Spiritual Exercises to Political Transformation, 2025), and King-Ho Leung (Spiritual Life and Secular Thought: A Phenomenology, 2026) to comment on each others’ recent publications. Their responses engage current themes in the field of spirituality studies such as “ethical self-change,” the intersection of spirituality and ecology, and the framework of “spiritual exercises” in political theory.
Vincent Lloyd is a professor of theology and religious studies and director of the Center for Political Theology at Villanova University. He is the author of Black Dignity (2022), co-author of What Is Political Theology? (2025), and co-editor of Political Theology Reimagined (2025). Lloyd is editor-at-large of the journal Political Theology.
King-Ho Leung is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Theology, Philosophy and the Arts at King's College London. His most recent book is Spiritual Life and Secular Thought: A Phenomenology (Oxford University Press, 2026).
Daniel Wyche is a PhD candidate in the philosophy of religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School, specializing in French, German, and Anglophone philosophy of religion and the history of religion and politics in the United States. His research focuses on the role of ethical and religious practices of self-transformation and self-care in political thought and action.
Symposium Essays
Spirituality, Politics, and the Other
This essay is part of the Discourses in Spirituality Round Robin.
In Which Spirituality Gets a Makeover
Coming
Breathing Otherwise: Spiritual Critique, Ethical Realignment, and Vegetal Life
Coming