October 2026

“Thinking about the Impossible” symposium

Thinking about the Impossible is a two-day interdisciplinary symposium examining how societies define, contest, and adjudicate the boundaries of the real. Bringing together leading scholars from the humanities and social sciences alongside scientific, legal, and policy perspectives, the symposium situates today’s debates over anomalous experience — miracles, UFOs, and unexplained phenomena — within much longer traditions of interpreting extraordinary events.

"The History and Art of Ontological Shock,” a prequel talk by Jeffrey J. Kripal as part of the Thinking about the Impossible symposium

“How to Think Impossibly: The History and Art of Ontological Shock” — A Prequel Talk by Jeffrey J. Kripal

As a prequel to Thinking about the Impossible, Yale’s December symposium, Jeffrey J. Kripal joins us by Zoom to set the stage with a talk on “The History and Art of Ontological Shock.”

History and Philosophy of the Mind Sciences Colloquium and Reading Group

The History and Philosophy of the Mind Sciences Colloquium and Reading Group is an interdisciplinary group for students and faculty at Yale who have shared interests in the history and philosophy of the mind sciences, understood broadly to include psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychology, and neuroscience. Our monthly meetings are structured around the discussion of recent humanistic scholarship and are meant to foster critical conversations about historiographical, methodological, and theoretical approaches to studying the mind, brain, and mental distress.