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Jesus and Buddha, separated by 3,000 miles and 400 hundred years, both speak to central questions of meaning. How similar — and how different — are their perspectives and how do the teachings, rituals, and histories of each tradition complement or contradict each other? Take the one-hour version of this popular Princeton course and explore how Jesus and Buddha understood t...
The average American will spend a third of his or her life working. What is the secret to achieving happiness because of our work and not in spite of it? How can we make a job into a vocation? David Brooks and Arthur Brooks have both studied and written about these questions, and they argue that in all kinds of work the answer is to find meaning. In this conversation, the...
The dramatic rise in suicides, violence, and addiction signal a society disconnected from meaning and a social fabric fraying at its seams. With participation in organized religion on the decline, and fewer traditional places to do the work of fellowship and ritual, what other places are people turning to to define their values and explore the big questions? To probe what...
When is the truth the truth, a lie a lie, and what constitutes mere BS in an era that many refer to as “post-truth”? We address the kinds of critical and largely ethical questions we confront in our modern-day discourse across this deep dive, exploring the intent of the First Amendment (does it protect lies?), the reasons we lie (or, in fact, are we just strategically misl...
How do we create a culture that brings out the best in our personal and professional lives? Rituals are powerful tools for building a culture that better aligns your values and priorities with your everyday practices. Our work shows how rituals help people bridge transitions, get to flow, deal with conflict, and increase bonding. In this session, we’ll share some of the...
Despite discussion of work-life balance, work is not something separate from our life, but integral to it. Good work is a critical component to a good life. As societies across the globe struggle with economic division and working people who feel left behind, can companies invent a world of work that is more sustainable? The Eileen Fisher company is a certified B corporati...
What is feminism, and is anyone doing it right? As the movement has gone mainstream and come under greater scrutiny, it seems any consensus on the meaning of “feminism” has been lost — but was there ever agreement on what it was? In this panel, a collection of leading thinkers will define feminism and attempt to answer what makes a good feminist in 2018. How can we get les...
Kate Bowler, a young scholar of Christianity, had just written a book called Blessed, about the Christian idea that good things happen to good people, when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at the age of 35. Suddenly confronted with this devastating news, and people’s well-meaning but often lacking responses to it, Bowler wrote a book, launched a podcast, and became a...
As employees everywhere are redefining their relationship to the office, what are we learning about what fosters productivity, growth, and meaning at work? In the battle between burnout and balance, how can employers build flexible workplaces that attract and retain talent while also maintaining organizational culture and connection?
What is racial healing? This conversation between NBC News correspondent Yamiche Alcindor and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s La June Montgomery Tabron highlights the growing impact of racial healing and explores how this practice is at the heart of our journey to racial equity. We’ll candidly discuss recent headlines — the killing of George Floyd and the energy it mobilized...
For years, Adam Gopnik’s writing has delighted with charming and nostalgic observations of our behavior within the world around us. In this lecture, he’ll use findings from a series of New Yorker essays to ask us, what is it exactly that we do when we learn to do something? When we learn to drive, draw, play the piano, or do magic, what is it that we get good at when we ge...
Ideas about living a moral life can be found in all cultures across time. In previous eras, education was meant to inculcate personal virtue and shape character. In centuries of religious teaching, moral behavior comes from God or some other deity. In more contemporary philosophy, where ideals for democracy, for example, embrace principled notions of liberty, equality, res...
The health of women and girls is closely tied to their right to make informed decisions about sexuality, marriage, and child-bearing, but the US is stepping back from leadership in this area. For the first time, the State Department has eliminated detailed information about contraception and maternal health care in its annual country reports on human rights. And the curren...
The search for meaning is at the crux of the human condition and the basis of Life Worth Living, a new book emulating one of Yale’s most popular courses. In this lively “hot seat” discussion, professor Miroslav Volf discusses the book’s framework with host Kelly Corrigan. Afterwards, distinguished guests join in contemplating key questions such as: what’s worth doing, who...
Artificial Intelligence is appearing in practically every facet of our lives, and Olympic sports is no exception. The US Olympic Committee is employing new technologies to supplement athletic ability and coaching intuition, from innovations in psychology, to the radar technology that helped propel one USA team to gold in Rio, and to cutting-edge motion capture technology b...
Robert Mueller's final report left almost as many open questions as there were before he began his probe. At the same time, others argue that the president has been cleared, it’s time to move on, and any further probes should target the investigators and the media that they feel predetermined Trump’s guilt. What did Mueller really say in the report? Did the president commi...
Like all institutions operating these days, museums have had to fundamentally shift to respond in real time to a global pandemic, a reckoning around racial justice, and a crisis around the very idea of truth. We often mistakenly think about museums as places for dusty relics. But on the contrary, they have an important job to do in helping us to contextualize what is happe...
We all want to make the world a better place, but with busy, demanding lives, most of us struggle with the where, when, and how. And in a world awash in need, it’s easy to give in to anger and frustration, to let cynicism consume our natural optimism and hunger to make a difference. Explore how to move beyond powerlessness, putting your strengths, resources, and beliefs to...
More than beautifying our common spaces, public art has the capacity to stimulate conversation and to move us as a community. As debate continues over how we retell and commemorate American history, Monument Lab “envision[s] a society where monuments are dynamic and defined by their meaning, not by their hardened immovable and untouchable status.” By cultivating and facili...
Is a thing of beauty, as Keats wrote, “a joy forever?” Or is it, as in the view of Camus, “unbearable”? The precise nature of beauty and how to understand its role in our lives may prove elusive to most of us, but it is the everyday work of philosophers. Is beauty skin deep? Is it socially and culturally determined and, if so, what are the implications? What power does it...