Blog
Welcome to the new Yale Forum Blog!
We will be sharing a variety of original content including interviews, reviews, reports from the field, new and enhanced resources on the Forum website, content from our new video podcast series, FORE Spotlights, and much more.
Check back every Tuesday and Thursday for new content.
On November 14, the Laudato Si' Action Platform was offcially launched by the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and their site is now open for enrollment. This much anticipated global project will help Catholic communities create environmental action plans and track their progress to help move our world in the direction of the Laudato Si' goals.
From the Platform website:
Caring for our brothers and sisters means caring for the home we share. This responsibility is “essential...
[Image credit: Nicole Dixon, “The Age Forgets But The Tree Re-members,” acrylic, charcoal, wood, fabric, chalk pastel, and gold leaf on canvas, 36” x 36”, 2021]
This week's episode of Spotlights features the artist and educator, Nicole Dixon. Nicole uses art as an interactive medium, and vehicle for self-transformation, community bridge-building, and positive social change. She talks about the ways her work engages with intersections between race, culture, politics, ecology, and spirituality. As...
There has been much religious activity surrounding COP26 since last Thursday's update. Here are a few of the top stories.
This Earthbeat article released yesterday by Brian Roewe gives a good update on what's been happening, particularly regarding Indigenous engagement with, and response to, the global conference.
On Thursday, a group of more than 100 religious leaders worldwide, including Ireland's former Chief Rabbi David Rosen, urged the adoption of the Plant Based...
This week's episode of Spotlights is a clip from our interview with Dr. Mirei Takashima Claremon, a global citizen, behavioral scientist, and cross-cultural consumer insights expert based in Los Angeles. In this part of the interview, she reflects on the ways that Shinto and Buddhist values and animistic sensibilities shape Japanese culture and behaviors toward the environment.
More details about her work and the full episode are available here.
Watch this episode below, or listen to it here.
An archive...
This week, tens of thousands of people streamed into the city of Glasgow for COP 26, the 2021 United Nations climate change conference. Among them were scores of religious groups and faith leaders.
There were many statements released by religious groups and figures in the lead-up to COP26. Some of the most impactful were the joint statement released this summer by Pope Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, which urged global...
This week, the Spotlights podcast welcomes Dr. Mirei Takashima Claremon, a global citizen, behavioral scientist, and cross-cultural consumer insights expert based in Los Angeles. She discusses her work leading the Behavioral Sustainability movement, reflecting on the limits of analytical thinking for ecology and sustainability. Emphasizing the importance of holistic and cross-cultural perspectives, she also talks about the role that Shintoism and Buddhism play in her life and work.
You can follow her blog and connect...
This week, the Forum released our new religiously-engaged Ecojustice Resource Hub! Our team has been working hard this year to bring this project to fruition, and we're very pleased to finally unveil it. See Monday's announcement here.
The resource hub offers:
A landing page with links to background information on, and histories of, the movement Several bibliographies, tailored to the users needs Tradition-specific lists of environmental justice-related...
This week's episode of Spotlights is a clip from our interview with Norman Wirzba, PhD, the Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Theology at Duke University, and Senior Fellow at Duke's Kenan Institute for Ethics. He talks about a life of rootedness and the limits of what is “enough,” reflecting on his new book, This Sacred Life: Humanity's Place in a Wounded World (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Details for the full episode are here.
Watch this episode below, or listen to it here.
An...
On
October 25 - November 2, Stanford University will be holding the Contemplation by Design Summit, an interactive online event encompassing talks, live meditations, workshops, and more.
From the event website:
Contemplation By Design is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, campus-wide program cultivating resilience, well-being, wisdom, compassion, and sustainable, ethical, purposeful service. Summit participants will have the opportunity to cultivate perspective, meaningful purpose, and contemplative practices that refresh...
This week's episode of Spotlights features Norman Wirzba, PhD, the Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of Theology at Duke University, and Senior Fellow at Duke's Kenan Institute for Ethics. He discusses his new book, This Sacred Life: Humanity's Place in a Wounded World (Cambridge University Press, 2021), which gives a deep philosophical and religious articulation of humanity's identity and vocation by rooting people in a symbiotic, meshwork world that is saturated with sacred gifts. We reflect on numerous topics...