Beyond the Forum

Thanks for joining us for the past three seasons of Beyond the Forum. We’ll be continuing to provide the in-depth content you love — just in a different location! Follow our signature podcast, The Veritas Forum podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts for monthly interviews with your favorite Veritas scholars and for some of our best Forum content. Starting this fall, we’ll be sharing new Beyond the Forum episodes as a part of our regular publishing schedule on The Veritas Forum podcast’s feed. We’ll be asking “What does it mean to be human” — and sharing scholar interviews and our best Veritas Forums that explore this topic. Subscribe to The Veritas Forum podcast on Apple Podcasts here.

This season is all about character and virtue — and how we can close our “character gaps” to become better people. But, what does it look like to grow more virtuous in a world with pain, trauma, and grief? Our guest for this episode, contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura, approaches this question through the lens of a centuries-old art form: kintsugi. Mako’s most recent book, Art + Faith, is available here. Like what you heard? Rate and review Beyond the Forum on Apple Podcasts to help more people discover our episodes. And, get updates on more ideas that shape our lives by signing up for our email newsletter here. Thanks for listening!

The pandemic upended all of our lives. As a response, we started different habits — and perhaps even formed addictions — that helped us to cope. But, after two years of pandemic living, is it possible to change? In this episode, we talk with Dr. Nii Addy, a researcher at Yale specializing in addiction, depression, and anxiety. And he says we can have hope — according to his research, it is possible to rewire our brains for greater mental health. If you’re curious to hear more from Nii, check out his podcast, Addy Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts! One of his recent episodes on faith, spirituality, and psychiatry is available here. Like what you heard? Rate and review Beyond the Forum on Apple Podcasts to help more people discover our episodes. And, get updates on more ideas that shape our lives by signing up for our email newsletter here. Thanks for listening!

People today reach the standard markers of adulthood — finishing education, getting married, becoming financially independent — later compared to people 50 years ago. Does that mean that kids these days are “behind” in their development? Or should these standard markers be rethought? Our guest today, Dr. Nancy Hill, is a Harvard professor and developmental psychologist. She invites us to consider how attending college might change how we develop — not just in our twenties, but for the rest of our lives. You can order Nancy and her co-author Alexis’s book, The End of Adolescence, here. Like what you heard? Rate and review Beyond the Forum on Apple Podcasts to help more people discover our episodes. And, get updates on more ideas that shape our lives by signing up for our email newsletter here. Thanks for listening!

Career searches often begin with the same question: “What’s my passion?” If you’re in a period of job transition — maybe you’re about to graduate, retire, or have felt like a new job is on the horizon — we want to help. And, we don’t think that “passion” is the best place to start. Join us as we talk with Dave Evans, New York Times best-selling author of Designing Your Life and Stanford professor, about what questions we should be asking when it comes to making our next steps vocationally. You can order Dave’s book, Designing Your Life, here. See more of Dave’s books on his website, https://designingyour.life/ Like what you heard? Rate and review Beyond the Forum on Apple Podcasts to help more people discover our episodes. And, get updates on more ideas that shape our lives by signing up for our email newsletter here. Thanks for listening!

What academic study can help you live a better life today? Medicine, Business, Anthropology, Social Science… Our guest this week, Dr. Meghan Sullivan, argues that philosophy should be on that list. Meghan is a philosophy professor at Notre Dame — she teaches the popular course, God and the Good Life, the freshman intro philosophy course — and she discusses with us four philosophical skills that can help you live a better, happier, even Good, Life. You can order Meghan and her co-author Paul’s new book, The Good Life Method, here. Like what you heard? Rate and review Beyond the Forum on Apple Podcasts to help more people discover our episodes. And, get updates on more ideas that shape our lives by signing up for our email newsletter here. Thanks for listening!

To kick off our third season, we’re starting with the question we’ve all asked ourselves: “Am I a good person?” Our guest, Dr. Christian Miller, has an answer — and it might not be what you think. Christian is a philosophy and ethics professor at Wake Forest University, and he’s spent over a decade studying character and virtue. Starting in 2010, Christian led the Character Project — a research group dedicated to the advancement of the scientific study of character. Recently, he’s honed in on one virtue in particular, honesty, through his direction of the Honesty Project. You can order Christian’s trade book on character and virtue, The Character Gap, here. Like what you heard? Rate and review Beyond the Forum on Apple Podcasts to help more people discover our episodes. And, get updates on more ideas that shape our lives by signing up for our email newsletter here. Thanks for listening!

The first episode of season three comes out Thursday, May 5th. Join us for our third season on Character & Virtue with our six guests: character researcher Dr. Christian Miller, philosopher Dr. Meghan Sullivan, New York Times best-selling author Dave Evans, developmental psychologist Dr. Nancy Hill, neuroscientist Dr. Nii Addy, and contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on Apple Podcasts. Plus, check out veritas.org to learn more about The Veritas Forum. Thank you!

As our team works on Season Three, here’s some of the original content that inspired our second season on Science and God. This Veritas Forum with Rosalind Picard — the guest for our episode “Is AI Intelligent?” — was hosted by students at Brown in November 2017 under the title: “What does it mean to be human?” Like what you heard? Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts to help more people discover our episodes. And, get updates on more ideas that shape our lives by signing up for our email newsletter here. Thanks for listening!

As our team works on Season Three, here’s some of the original content that inspired our second season on Science and God. This Veritas Forum with Praveen Sethupathy — the guest for our episode “Should you take a leap of faith?” — was hosted by students at Princeton in April 2021 under the title: “Can Science & Spirituality Coexist?” Like what you heard? Rate and review us on Apple Podcasts to help more people discover our episodes. And, get updates on more ideas that shape our lives by signing up for our email newsletter here. Thanks for listening!