Podcasts by Ideas
IDEAS is a deep-dive into contemporary thought and intellectual history. No topic is off-limits. In the age of clickbait and superficial headlines, it
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Podcast on the topic Gesellschaft und Kultur
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Peter Stursberg Lecture: Giancarlo Fiorella of Bellingcat_ from 2022-12-15T08:10
In a world that’s increasingly hostile to journalists, Bellingcat has become an internationally respected organization uncovering the truth about wrongdoing. Giancarlo Fiorella, a senior investigat...
ListenNorthrop Frye: Return to the Educated Imagination (Pt 1) from 2021-03-08T00:10
What good is the study of literature? Northrop Frye’s 1962 CBC Massey Lectures were his attempt to answer that age-old question. Frye scholar and friend Deanne Bogdan revisits the lectures and help...
ListenRe-Engineering Humanity: Brett Frischmann (Part Two) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Digital network technologies are re-engineering our lives, according to legal scholar Brett Frischmann. In part two of our series, IDEAS explores ways to prevent ourselves from becoming wards of th...
ListenThe Old Masters: Decoding pre-historic art with Jean Clottes from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The songs and stories of prehistoric humans are gone. All that remains of their culture is their art. IDEAS contributor Neil Sandell introduces us to the French archaeologist Jean Clottes, a man wh...
ListenHow to avoid conflict: Lessons from 16th century Italian duels from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
York University PhD student and master fencer, Aaron Miedema has been researching over 300 cases of duels from the 16th and 17th century. Turns out there are lessons for us from 500 years ago which...
ListenRe-Engineering Humanity: Brett Frischmann (Part One) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
American legal scholar Brett Frischmann says we have to wake up to the risk of losing our humanity to 21st techno-social engineering. He warns humans are heading down an ill-advised path that is ma...
Listen2020 Gelber Prize: From freedom to extremism in Central Europe from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Extreme leaders, inequality, and unhappy citizens: what happened to the promise of a new day in Eastern and Central Europe? From the fall of the Wall to this pandemic era, looking at the legacy of ...
ListenThe Terrors or the Time: Lessons from historic plagues from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Coronavirus isn't the first pandemic to sweep the world. Typhoid and flu killed millions. But history's really big killer was the bubonic plague. Three historians discuss what we can learn from the...
Listen“You Might Need Some Richard Rorty” from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
"He is a nemesis to many, and is claimed as a friend by only very few," wrote Eduardo Mendieta about Richard Rorty, the most quoted, most criticized, and most widely read of recent U.S. philosopher...
ListenJacob wrestling his 'angel' is our own struggle from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Jacob, the biblical patriarch, seems far from our time. But his all-night wrestling match with a strange being throws shadows across the ages, and exposes powerful elements of our own humanity. IDE...
ListenForty years on, Edward Said's 'Orientalism' still groundbreaking from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Edward Said's seminal book, Orientalism (1978), proposed one of the most influential and enduring analyses of the relationship between the West and the Middle East. In many ways, his ideas seem unc...
ListenThe Best We Can Do — the pragmatic views of Cheryl Misak and young Frank Ramsey from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Is there anything better than “the best we can do”? According to some pragmatic philosophers, it’s not about settling for less but constantly pushing for more, and more. IDEAS presents the case for...
ListenThe Enright Files: How books from the past can help explain the present from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The world’s greatest writers have spent millennia chronicling their own times and world-changing events — and imagining all the conundrums and catastrophes that might confront humanity. On The Enri...
ListenSailing Alone Around The World, Part Two from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica is the most dangerous and least understood of our great oceans. IDEAS producer Philip Coulter joins solo sailors and a historian on a radio expedition to f...
ListenMachines of Chance: How casino culture plays with us from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Casinos: if the house always wins, why do we play? How the universal temptations of both vice and risk — not to mention the language of Brexit — feed into the 24/7 slot machine of our “casino cultu...
ListenSailing Alone Around The World, Part One from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1895 a retired Canadian sea captain set off to sail alone around the world. It had never been done. Since then, fewer than 200 people have sailed in his wake and two of them are Canadian. In thi...
ListenMaoism: A Story of its History and Revival from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If you thought Maoism was dead, think again. It’s enjoying a revival under President Xi Jinping. With tensions between China and the West on the rise, award- winning author Julia Lovell argues the ...
ListenDoes the deep state exist? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The term 'deep state' has been used by both the political left and the right. In broad strokes, it means official leaders of a country aren't the real leaders — that hidden away in bureaucracies or...
ListenWhat is Democracy? Astra Taylor says it's worth fighting for from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Canadian-American filmmaker and writer Astra Taylor admits that for most of her life the term "democracy" held little appeal. But when she took on the what-is-democracy question, her inquiry turned...
ListenFighting for democracy from the bottom up | Astra Taylor, Pt 2 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Filmmaker, writer and activist Astra Taylor sets out to answer a question we rarely ask: what is democracy? Her conclusion: democracy doesn't exist — at least, not quite. And yet, she says, it's st...
ListenThe Enright Files: Conversations about opera and the people who make it from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
It’s hard to think of a musical genre with a more fearsome reputation for being rarefied, forbidding and just plain snooty than opera. But before the 20th century, opera was popular entertainment —...
ListenOur fractured, fractious age in one sentence: Lucy Ellmann from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Lucy Ellmann's Booker-nominated Ducks, Newburyport, captures our fractious, fractured age through the eyes of a likeable, pie-baking housewife in Ohio in an epic running one thousand pages long in ...
Listen'I love you': the most treasured (and misunderstood) expression of all time from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
I love you: those three magic words are the most powerful and misunderstood words in the English language, according to writer and contributor Marianne Apostilides. She draws from Shakespeare, Freu...
ListenAn Improbable Revolution: Hong Kong vs. China from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The protest movement in Hong Kong has evolved into three distinct revolutionary moments, according to sociologist Ching Kwan Lee. It has led to the reimagining of community, the re-evaluation of vi...
ListenNo mushy middle: Adam Gopnik defends liberalism in his LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his LaFontaine-Baldwin lecture and conversation with Nahlah Ayed, author and essayist Adam Gopnik argues liberalism is not the mushy middle ground between right and left. It’s a vital set of ega...
ListenNostalgia for the Absolute: George Steiner's 1974 CBC Massey Lectures from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The internationally renowned thinker and scholar, George Steiner, died this week, at the age of 90. In 1974, he delivered the CBC Massey Lectures, entitled Nostalgia for the Absolute, in which exam...
ListenThe Enright Files: Conversations about Brexit and barriers from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Brexit became a reality on January 31st, after three-and-a-half years of political chaos and gridlock following the 2016 referendum. This month on the Enright Files, conversations about the drama a...
ListenPT 2: Why journalist Emily Bell is calling for a civic media manifesto from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Emily Bell, director of the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, continues her exploration of a civic media manifesto. In a world dominated by c...
ListenWhy journalist Emily Bell is calling for a civic media manifesto from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
With the free press under attack, a civic media manifesto is needed now more than ever, according to acclaimed scholar and journalist Emily Bell. She negotiates this critical crossroad for the medi...
ListenMyanmar, the Rohingya people & genocide: Inside the International Court of Justice from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
* WARNING: Content in this episode may be disturbing. Listener discretion is advised. * On Thursday, the International Court of Justice will announce whether it will proceed with allegations that ...
ListenThe resistance of Black Canada: State surveillance and suppression from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Canada's history of suppressing Black activism is coming to light like never before, thanks to researchers like PhD student Wendell Adjetey. Wendell's historical research uncovers evidence of cland...
ListenReconciliation can't happen without reclamation of land, argues Max FineDay from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What does reconciliation mean to Max FineDay, a young Indigenous leader? It means freedom, prosperity and giving back land to Indigenous people. It is the way forward for young people to have meani...
ListenA chair is never just a chair: A social history of a ubiquitous household item, Part 2 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In part two of our series, Machines for Sitting, Witold Rybczynski focuses on the modern chair. The Canadian architect and Nahlah Ayed visit the Design Within Reach furniture store in New York, to ...
ListenA chair is never just a chair: A social history of a ubiquitous household item, Part 1 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Architect Witold Rybczynski, author of Now I Sit Me Down, explores the social history of chairs, the stories chairs tell, and how they've changed through history in a two-part series. Part one focu...
ListenAnimals under the law: What options are there for animals to 'lawyer up'? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Under the eyes of the law, animals that live in our homes or on a farm are ‘property.' But there's a growing movement to grant some animals like chimpanzees, elephants and dolphins 'non-human perso...
ListenBright IDEAS for 2020: Our annual New Year's levee from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There's a custom that started in New France where the colonial governor opened the doors of his mansion to people every New Year's Day, to share holiday cheer and listen to concerns and hopes for t...
ListenHuman rights advocate Shirin Ebadi says the current protests hint at an eventual collapse of Iran’s regime from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As protests erupted in some 100 cities across Iran last month, Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights advocate Shirin Ebadi urged the international community to support the Iranian people. The f...
ListenGet thee behind me, tech: putting humans before social media from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Douglas Rushkoff witnessed the initial promise of the internet — a ‘social medium’ for thoughtful encounters and the democratizing of knowledge. It’s since become ‘social media’; a system that col...
ListenHow To Feed The World from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
David Nabarro, a longtime advisor to the UN on sustainable development, says climate change is forcing us to rethink how our food systems work and figure out the best way to get people the food the...
ListenIn the Sweet By and By: Atheist Edition from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What happens when atheists engage sincerely with Christian apologists and evangelical creationists -- and vice versa? A lot, in fact; and most of it is good.
ListenCanada as a middle power in an upended world: Time for a foreign policy reset? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As chaotic and unpredictable as the world can be, there was — at least for a time — an international rules-based order, underpinned by US leadership that ensured at least a semblance of stability. ...
ListenCBC Massey Lecture # 3: Toxic Addiction Machines from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Everyone loves to hate social media, but there's a real reason it seems impossible to quit. And you might not like it. In the third instalment of the Massey Lectures, Ron Deibert exposes how social...
ListenCBC Massey Lecture # 2: The Market for Our Minds from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The ads that personalize our internet browsing are obvious examples of how "attention merchants" vie for our data, but the more insidious actors are the ones we don't see. In his second CBC Massey ...
ListenCBC Massey Lecture # 1: Look At That Device In Your Hand from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
There's a problem with that device in your hand — your phone that makes you anxious when it's not near. Renowned tech expert Ron Deibert says that needs to change. The 2020 Massey Lecturer suggests...
ListenMapping the Heavens: Yale astrophysicist Priya Natarajan from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 2019, the first up-close image of a black hole was recorded. And yet, so much about them, their bizarre properties and the role they play in the universe remains a mystery. The distinguished Yal...
ListenThe Long Conversation: Why public broadcasting is more crucial than ever from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In a public talk she gave in 2018, journalist Sue Gardner argues that we’ve returned to the same set of ominous social conditions which led to the creation of public broadcasting in the first place...
ListenLaughing Matters: the science of laughter from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Disclaimer: Profanity | What role does laughter play in the evolution of humanity? What does our laughter have in common with the way primates and even rats laugh? IDEAS contributor Peter Brown tak...
ListenMoney Rules: Is Capitalism Destroying Democracy? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We are used to hearing how capitalism goes hand-in-hand with freer, more democratic societies. But it's not always so. Investigative journalist Bruce Livesey reveals historical examples that show w...
ListenLaFontaine-Baldwin 2020: Pathways to Renewal from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the midst of a pandemic is it too soon to talk about renewal? For some, it’s well past time. Previous LaFontaine-Baldwin lecturers and emerging leaders gather to look upon the fault lines COVID-...
ListenThe Conspiracy Rush from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Conspiracy theories may be ultra divisive today, but there was a time when they were an acceptable form of knowledge. They are powerful in political battle — and even more so in the age of rising p...
ListenThe Forest Floor of the Art World: Marc Mayer at MOCA from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re dazzled, and sometimes frazzled, by our encounters with contemporary art. Marc Mayer, former director of the National Gallery of Canada, draws back the curtain to show what’s behind the art t...
ListenRats: Facing Our Fears, Part Two from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For millennia, rats have been portrayed as violent and disgusting. But rats have aided in our self-understanding. IDEAS contributor Moira Donovan investigates the contributions rats have made to hu...
ListenRats: Haunting Humanity’s Footsteps - Part One from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Despite their admirable qualities, rats have long been reviled as disgusting and aggressive animals. IDEAS contributor Moira Donovan explores how rats have come to occupy a position as cultural vil...
ListenThe Coming Zombie Apocalypse from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Just in time for Halloween, IDEAS revisits pop culture’s love of zombies in a 2015 documentary by journalists Garth Mullins and Lisa Hale. What does the zombie as a metaphor say about us? Join us f...
ListenVisions of the Apocalypse from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
If 2020 makes you feel like the end is near, you’re not alone. But it might help to know that history shows people have always felt the end is near. This archive episode from 1998 looks at the long...
ListenThe Pulpit, Power and Politics: Evangelicalism's thumbprint on America from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The grip conservative evangelicalism has on American social and political life is hard to overestimate. Committed Christian and author Jemar Tisby was joined by historians of religion John Fea and ...
ListenThe Rhythm Section: How Beats and Grooves Define Us from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Rhythm is of course a fundamental part of music. But neuroscience is revealing that it’s also a fundamental part of our innermost selves: how we learn to walk, talk, read and even bond with others....
ListenAn Evening with Chickens from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Chickens have followed humankind around the world, giving us eggs and meat, and also spiritual and social comfort. And it’s the living animal who stars in this podcast by IDEAS producer, Tom Howell...
ListenCowboy's Lament, Part Two from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Since the early 1900s cowboy fiction and films have played a major role in shaping popular notions of the American West. In this second of our two-part series The Cowboy's Lament, IDEAS contributor...
ListenCowboy's Lament, Part One from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The potent Images of the cowboy and the six shooter have shaped the myth of the American West: pioneer freedom and frontier towns. In this first episode of a two-part series, IDEAS contributor Tom ...
ListenAn Unequal World from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Humans have a strong sense of fairness, and we know that the good things in life are unequally divided among us. We’ve justified inequality by creating concepts of class, race, gender and so on. It...
ListenThe lasting legacy of the 1970 FLQ manifesto from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Fifty years ago this October, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), escalated their separatist campaign by kidnapping British diplomat James Cross, and Quebec Deputy Premier Pierre Laporte, spar...
ListenMeet the winners of the 2020 Canada Council Killam Prizes from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Canada Council Killam Prize recognizes and celebrates inspiring scholars and eminent thinkers. Nahlah Ayed spends time with each Killam Prize winner to learn about their cutting-edge work in en...
ListenThe Democracy of Suffering: Todd Dufresne from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We’re all in this together, suffering equally, as the planet struggles through the Anthropocene age — an era created by human activity. It’s why the author of The Democracy of Suffering, Todd Dufre...
ListenOught vs. Is: Reclaiming nature as a moral guide from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Throughout the centuries, politicians, theologians and philosophers have pointed to nature as a way to guide our actions and beliefs. The equivalence between "unnatural" and "bad" seems to be as du...
ListenThe Buffalo, Part Three from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Buffalo — a three-part series that originally aired in 1992 — tells the story of a magnificent animal, and of the people who lived with the buffalo. It's also the story of survivors, of the Ind...
ListenThe Idea of India: Gandhi vs Ambedkar, Part Two from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 2019, the Indian government passed legislation amending its citizenship laws. Many people argued it targeted the country's Muslim minority. Protesters held up images of B.R. Ambedkar, the Dalit ...
ListenThe Idea of India: Gandhi vs Ambedkar, Part One from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In December 2019, the government of India passed legislation amending its citizenship laws. Critics, activists, and ordinary people pushed back, arguing the law was targeting the country's Muslim m...
ListenSeparated at Rebirth: Science and Religion from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
With the rise of mindfulness and the growth of brain research, Buddhism and science have become fast friends. Philosopher Evan Thompson is skeptical about the contemporary characterization of Buddh...
ListenThe Mystery of Louise Labé from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Stakes are high for readers and scholars as the identity of a groundbreaking poet, Louise Labé, is debated in France and beyond. Sexy, wry, and bold, her poems cut across time. They also upend assu...
ListenThe Buffalo, Part Two from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the foothills of the Rockies, you'll find a cliff rising 11 metres from the ground called Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, in Alberta. For more than 5,000 years, Indigenous peoples of the plains us...
ListenThe Shakespeare Conspiracy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The internet is awash in conspiracy theories. In this lecture, Simon Fraser University professor Paul Budra examines conspiracy theories as an art form, using the long-running conspiracy theories o...
ListenThe Warfare State: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When critiques are made of the military-industrial complex in the U.S., they usually come from left-wing thinkers. But Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a lifelong Republican and career army officer, believ...
ListenThe Death of Leisure from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As soon as the inbox is cleared and the dishes are put away and the report is submitted and laundry is done, only then can we think about how to pursue the things we value. So how do we reconfigure...
ListenIdeas from the Trenches: Incarcerated Women’s Resilience from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
PhD student Rachel Fayter was incarcerated for more than three years. She draws from her experience and the relationships she formed in jail to inform her ‘groundbreaking’ research into the resilie...
ListenThe Buffalo, Part One from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the mid-1870s, buffalo roamed across North America in the millions. A few short decades later, there were only 300 left. Using both science and storytelling, this series tells the story of the b...
ListenDear Leader: Notes from the time of cholera from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Leading in the time of COVID-19 is to lead when a virus is calling the shots. In 1892, Hamburg had its own devastating cholera outbreak. According to historian Sir Richard Evans, how authorities na...
ListenBeethoven's Scowl from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Beethoven was born 250 years ago this year. Since his death, he’s been used as a symbol of big ideas, from liberalism to nationalism to manliness. This documentary examines the shifting image of Be...
ListenInto the Wild: Anthropologist Wade Davis from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Ancient wisdom in the modern world can save us from the dangers of climate change, argues Wade Davis. The Canadian anthropologist has spent a lifetime looking into what Indigenous peoples of the wo...
ListenThe History of Serial Killers: Peter Vronsky from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What goes on in the mind of a serial killer? After two random encounters with serial killers, historian and professor Peter Vronsky is trying to answer that very question — who they are, what motiv...
ListenHow jeans became one of the most polluting garments in the world from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Blue jeans evolved from being the uniform of cowboys to a symbol of rebellion, and are now the most popular — and possibly the most polluting — garment in the world. Ideas contributor and fashion e...
ListenThe Identity of Me, The Community of Us from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In this time of upheaval, what does the future look like? When we think about marginalized groups in society, and issues of gender, race, and poverty — how do we work toward making a better world? ...
ListenThe Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism: Anne Applebaum from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The left may be dominant in cultural spheres. But the right is dominant in politics, where real power is exercised. That dominance, however, has derailed political conservatism throughout the Weste...
ListenThe Common Good: The Politics of Belonging from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Left-wing and right-wing governments around the world have fallen into the same trap, a failure of leadership to inspire a cohesive vision of society that ordinary citizens can share. What is to be...
ListenThe Common Good: The Next Great Migration from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
“Migrant” evokes images of desperate people surging at closed borders. But they are us. Science writer Sonia Shah argues that a deep human instinct has been politicized as disruptive and troubling....
ListenThe Common Good: The Limits of Us from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When we challenge humanity to "work together as a species," are we making an unreasonable demand? As part of our Common Good series, poet and essayist M. NourbeSe Philip and Nahlah Ayed explore the...
ListenThe Common Good: Hedonism for Everyone from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When you think of a hedonist, you might think of a wine-guzzling sex addict, or a chocolate-binging glutton. As part of our series searching for common good, IDEAS tracks the true story of hedonism...
ListenThe Common Good: The Good Ancestor from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In calling on us to be good ancestors, public philosopher Roman Krznaric is trying to give the discussion about the future a language, an address and a face: introducing us to all the people alread...
ListenCBC Massey Lecture # 5: Shifting Power | Toronto from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The irresistible force meets the immovable object: the long fight for women’s equality with men is perhaps nearing a conclusion. Women all over the world are demanding a better, more equitable plac...
ListenThe Brilliance of Beavers: Learning from an Anishnaabe World from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar and artist, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson talks about the philosophy and ethics that undergird Anishnaabe worlds in her 2020 Kreisel Lecture entitled, A Shor...
ListenParadise Lost, Part 2: After the Fall from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
When we first meet Adam and Eve in John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, they live in a perfect world. But by the end, they're expelled into one that is marked by exile, war, illness and death. ID...
ListenParadise Lost: Better to Reign in Hell from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the 17th century, John Milton wrote his epic poem Paradise Lost. He created the most sympathetic Satan in literary history — a complex character with legitimate grievances against a repressive G...
ListenMachines that can think: real benefits, the Apocalypse, or 'dog-spaghetti'? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Stephen Hawking thought that artificial intelligence could spell the end of humanity. But Roger Melko of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics thinks that maybe, just maybe, we're on the ...
ListenCBC Massey Lecture # 4: When the Patriarchy Meets the Matriarchy | Montreal from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Populism is bad for women — so much of the rise in authoritarian governments is based on the dream of returning to an idealized past, when a woman knew her place was in the kitchen. Populism also t...
ListenThe Rise of the Glorified Spinster from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Throughout history, single women have been vilified, ostracized and shamed. And while there are more single-person households in Canada than ever before, that lingering stigma still follows the sin...
ListenWhere Is Our Conscience? Patricia Churchland on the biological roots of morality from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How do we determine right from wrong? According to Patricia Churchland, the answer is through science and philosophy. The distinguished proponent of neurophilosophy explores how moral systems arise...
ListenPsychologists confront impossible finding, triggering a revolution in the field from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 2011, American psychologist Daryl Bem proved the impossible. He showed that precognition — the ability to sense the future — is real. His study was explosive and shook the very foundations of ps...
ListenTake it like a Stoic: coping in the time of coronavirus from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Early Stoics knew all about crisis: They lived through wars, exile and episodes of infectious disease, as well as the loss of loved ones. In the time of coronavirus, modern Stoics say their predece...
ListenCBC Massey Lecture # 3: A Holy Paradox | Fredericton from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Most religions try to explain what the universe means and why we’re here. More often than not, many of these explanations entail women having lower status than men. Award-winning journalist, Sally ...
ListenA symbol of failure: The resurgence of border walls from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Canadian author and journalist Marcello Di Cintio is a wall traveller and says the 21st century has been a boom time for walls. In 2012, he wrote a book about our walled world and has made it his b...
ListenThe New Masters: The 2019 Sobey Art Award, Part 2 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Ideas producer Mary Lynk in conversation with the 2019 Sobey Art Award finalists Anne Low and Kablusiak and winner Stephanie Comilang. *Originally aired on March 6, 2020.
ListenUntil the End of Time: Brian Greene from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As the COVID-19 crisis trudges on, a physicist contemplates the ultimate end of the universe... and marvels at the wonder of all existence. Mathematician Brian Greene says there is solace to be fou...
ListenWhat psychiatrists still don't know about mental illness from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
How can it be that psychiatry still doesn’t know what causes major mental problems such as depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia? Historian Anne Harrington and writer Marya Hornbacher exp...
ListenCBC Massey Lecture # 2: The Mating Game | Vancouver from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Sally Armstrong's second lecture, she explores sex: the history of sex for procreation, for pleasure, for business. In our time, monogamy is the norm, but evolutionary biology suggests that in p...
ListenHow the Hungarian border fence remains a political symbol from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Beginning in 2015 a great wave of migrants flooded Europe. Hungary built a fence to keep everyone out. In part four of our series, Walking the Border: Walls That Divide Us, Nahlah Ayed visits the H...
ListenThe New Masters: The 2019 Sobey Art Award, Part 1 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
IDEAS producer Mary Lynk in conversation with 2019 Sobey Art Award winner Stephanie Comilang and finalists Kablusiak, Nicolas Grenier, Anne Low and D'Arcy Wilson. *Originally published on March 5, ...
ListenHow elite do-gooders 'fixing' the world are part of the problem: Anand Giridharadas from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Should the world’s problems be solved by unelected elites? Surely these are decisions we all need to be part of. Anand Giridharadas argues if we don’t trust the institutions we have for fixing the ...
ListenIntroducing: The Secret Life of Canada from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The Secret Life of Canada hosted by Leah Simone Bowen and Falen Johnson is a podcast that looks at all the people, places and events regularly left out of Canadian history. This episode from Season...
Listen'Global Trumpism': Bailouts, Brexit and battling climate change from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
**Warning: Explicit language in this episode ** With panache, humour, and a dash of outrage, political economist Mark Blyth explains how the 2008 bank bailouts led to Trump, Brexit, and a whole new...
ListenCBC Massey Lecture # 1: In the Beginning(s) | Whitehorse from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
“There’s never been a better time in human history to be a woman,” says Sally Armstrong in the first of her first 2019 CBC Massey Lectures: Power Shift: The Longest Revolution. The acclaimed journa...
ListenAccepting refugees isn't a gift — it's a human right: Michael Ignatieff from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In a time of growing authoritarianism and a decline in democratic institutions, it is a greater challenge to accept that despite the language of “us and them,” we have obligations to strangers both...
ListenImagining the World: Darwin and the Idea of Evolution from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Darwin's ideas about evolution shifted the way we think about the place of humans in the world: we're not so special, just another life form with a bigger brain and opposable thumbs. What else can ...
ListenThe saxophone and the spirit: the sax's forgotten spiritual roots from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The shiny, handsome and undeniably cool saxophone has been a staple of jazz music and popular culture for nearly a century. But some music historians say that what’s often been overlooked are its d...
ListenInventing Ireland: Declan Kiberd from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
A people get a sense of who they are through their artists, primarily the writers and poets who, through words and stories, reflect images that are somehow familiar. Irish scholar Declan Kiberd has...
ListenIreland's Brexit border: the 'most maligned place' from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
After 20 years of peace, the looming uncertainty of a hard Irish border has sparked fear and rancour in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The tension over the fate of the now invisible border splitting...
ListenThe Relativity Revolution: Albert Einstein and the making of the modern world from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In 1905, when Albert Einstein worked as a patent office clerk, he published a series of academic papers that revolutionized physics and our thinking about space and time, mass and energy. His ideas...
Listen'We continue to be feared': Kamal Al-Solaylee on why being brown matters to everyone from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In a compelling conversation, acclaimed journalist and author Kamal Al-Solaylee discusses all things brown, from the psychology of the colour, to why he says, it’s always 'a bridesmaid, never the b...
Listen'Shouldn't there be a law against that?': Facing our fear of genetic innovation from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Professor Bartha Knoppers is the 2019 recipient of the Henry G. Friesen International Prize for excellence in health research. Once a scholar of surrealist poetry, she has now become a world-renown...
ListenEscape options narrowing for world caught in 'progress trap': Ronald Wright from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his 2004 CBC Massey Lectures, Ronald Wright warned us a “progress trap” was closing around our technologically-advanced, but dangerously self-destructive, civilization. Wright tells IDEAS now he...
ListenThe peace walls of Belfast: Do they still help keep the peace? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
More than 20 years after the Good Friday peace agreement was signed, the so-called peace walls remain in Northern Ireland. Host Nahlah Ayed heads to Belfast to find out if the walls are helping or ...
ListenWishful dreaming: Freud and the discovery of our inner life from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Sigmund Freud had many radical ideas about our inner life and how mental illness or trauma might be treated. Perhaps his most radical idea was that the patient should be listened to. This episode f...
ListenEducation without liberal arts is a threat to humanity, argues UBC President from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
UBC President Santa J Ono is a renowned biologist. But he says it was the liberal arts education that he had as an undergraduate gave him the wisdom he needed to flourish. Ono argues that the value...
ListenTrue History in the Age of Fake News: The 2019 Cundill Panel from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Deepfakes. Political bias. Contested facts. How can historians possibly nail the truth in our polarized times? A panel of top historians — all of them Cundill History Prize finalists and winners — ...
ListenThe Origins of Specious: Climate Change Denialism from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Climate change denialism has been around for years. And it's still here, even after four decades of scientific consensus that humans are causing the climate crisis. But why? Harvard science histori...
ListenThe Joy of Mediocrity from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Sick of aiming for excellence and feeling miserable when you fall short? You’re not alone. Explore the upsides of imperfection, lowered expectations, and outright failure with philosopher Daniel Mi...
Listen'In my great and unmatched wisdom': Donald Trump's new world order from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
As disruptors go, Donald Trump is the world's most powerful one right now — disrupting everything from national politics, to social issues, to international relations. How far will his disruptions ...
ListenA continent of stories: slaying the dragons of hate with words from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Deborah Ahenkora has long believed there's a 'book famine' throughout Africa. The most acute shortage is in books written by Africans for Africans — especially children's books in which African chi...
ListenThe Unconventional Diplomat: Standing Up For Principles from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In Part 2 of The Unconventional Diplomat, former UN Human Rights Chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein continues a fascinating tour through the backrooms of global diplomacy. He explains why he refused to g...
ListenThe Unconventional Diplomat: Breaking The Rules from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In a well-known speech in diplomatic circles, as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called out powerful world leaders. But he laments a “fearfulness” currently within ...
ListenHere Comes Trouble: How to worry sensibly in the 21st Century from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Three expert analysts, each from a different discipline, reveal their greatest fears for the near-ish future and make the case for how we must now prepare for it. From the threat of conflict betwee...
ListenJust don't say his name: the modern left on Karl Marx's place in politics from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Intelligent minds have disagreed, vehemently, ever since Karl Marx wrote his ideas down in the mid-1800s. They disagree some more in this IDEAS episode about Marx and the modern political left, fea...
ListenWe must recapture the lost 'art' of scripture: Karen Armstrong from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Former Catholic sister Karen Armstrong describes herself as a freelance monotheist. She focuses on the sounds, rituals and power of scripture, all of which she fears is endangered in our secular, d...
ListenDa Vinci's Celibacy from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Leonardo da Vinci is celebrated for his astonishing genius and inventive mind. Historian Elizabeth Abbott argues that understanding da Vinci’s sex life, or lackthereof, provides a rare glimpse into...
ListenMonster buff Leonardo da Vinci would have loved Halloween from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Leonardo da Vinci would have loved Halloween. The renaissance artist and engineer was also a monster buff. Writer and historian Ross King unveils da Vinci’s sketches and stories of monsters, beasts...
ListenSlavery's long shadow: The impact of 200 years enslavement in Canada from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Is there a connection between the enslavement of Black-Canadians and their overwhelming presence in the criminal justice system today? The United Nations has sounded the alarm on anti-black racism ...
ListenThe Travels of Mirza Saleh Shirazi from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the 18th and 19th centuries, a series of Persian travellers from Iran and India to visit cities all over the world. They wrote popular travelogues describing the cultures and ideas they encounte...
ListenThe Flapper and the Modern Girl from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the 1920s a new style icon arrived: flappers. They had bobbed hair and penchants for smoking, drinking, and dancing. In Matthew Lazin-Ryder's documentary you'll hear how the spectre of the flapp...
ListenReading With a Grain of Salt, Part Three from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Writer Barbara Nichol continues exploring shared assumptions about reading with original thinkers — writers, critics, scholars and journalists. This is the final part in a three-part series called ...
ListenNorthrop Frye: The Educated Imagination Reconsidered (Pt. 2) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Northrop Frye viewed literature as a vast structure of the human imagination. He taught that imagination can broaden our beliefs and encourage tolerance. As readers, we are meant to ‘disappear’ int...
ListenA Baldwin Revival: In Good Times and In Bad from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
On February 18, 1965, the writer, poet and civil rights activist James Baldwin was invited to Cambridge University for a debate on whether the American dream is "at the expense of the American Negr...
ListenThucydides, Part 2: Lessons from the plague of Athens from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The plague of Athens struck in 430 BC, violently killing up to half of the Greek city's population. Thucydides was on hand to document the grim symptoms, as well as the social and psychological fal...
ListenThucydides, Part 1: The First Journalist from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
About 2,500 years ago, Thucydides travelled ancient Greece, gathering stories about a brutal war that plunged the ancient world into chaos. He set high standards for accuracy, objectivity and thoro...
ListenReading with a Grain of Salt, Part Two from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Writer Barbara Nichol continues exploring shared assumptions about reading, readers and books with original thinkers — writers, critics, scholars and journalists. This is part two in a three-part s...
ListenI Will Never See The World Again: Imprisoned writer Ahmet Altan’s memoir of resilience from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In a small Turkish prison cell, celebrated novelist and journalist Ahmet Altan has written a powerful memoir. It was smuggled out by his lawyer, who says the charges against Altan are Kafkaesque. O...
ListenIf we abolish prisons, what's next? from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Prison abolitionists say prison is a failed social policy. Ultimately what it does is address the expected consequences of inequality and marginalization. So, maybe, the time has come to get rid of...
ListenLessons of Doris Lessing, Part Two from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Writer Doris Lessing grew up in white Southern Rhodesia where she became an astute observer of the ways ordinary people learn to cling to extreme beliefs. In her 1985 CBC Massey Lecture, the Nobel...
ListenLessons of Doris Lessing, Part One from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Writer Doris Lessing grew up in white Southern Rhodesia where she became an astute observer of the ways ordinary people learn to cling to extreme beliefs. In her 1985 CBC Massey Lecture, the Nobel...
ListenWriters on a mission — 3 high-stakes stories from award-winning authors from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Three Canadian writers read and reflect on the theme of troubled missions: Joan Thomas on her childhood as an evangelical Christian, Erin Bow on the self-sacrificing dedication of scientists, and D...
ListenReading with a Grain of Salt, Part 1 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
We tend to think that reading is a sign of intelligence, that we’re improved by it. But are our assumptions well-founded? Not really, according to an array of literary front runners. Writer Barbara...
ListenFrom Iceland to the Red Planet: The Mars Mission 2020 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
* Warning: Explicit Language * Iceland’s terrain — and mythology — yield surprising insights into potential past life on Mars, and sobering lessons on Earth’s future.
ListenThe Enright Files: Rethinking Cities from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted what doesn’t work in our cities, from overcrowding on public transit, to the lack of green spaces where people can be physically active outside — yet maintain ...
ListenCanada's slavery secret: The whitewashing of 200 years of enslavement from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Why is it common knowledge that Canada was the terminal stop on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves from the U.S., but few know that Blacks and Indigenous peoples were bought, sold and expl...
ListenAmericas Other Civil War from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In the decades after the Civil War, four American cities over four decades saw white civilians ?— and officials ?— attack and destroy thousands of African-American properties, businesses and lives....
ListenRevisiting Thomas King’s Massey Lectures, Part Five from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
For his fifth Massey Lecture, writer Thomas King turns to what he considers a major threat to the existence of Indigenous people. He analyzes how the Canadian and American governments have legislat...
ListenRevisiting Thomas King’s Massey Lectures, Part Four from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his fourth lecture, author Thomas King turns to the stories that Native people tell about themselves, both orally, and in print, and how these stories can be used to imagine a Native future.
ListenRevisiting Thomas King’s Massey Lectures, Part Three from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Storytelling in all its forms is the focus of Thomas King’s 2003 Massey Lectures which IDEAS is revisiting this week. In his third talk, King looks at the ways Indigenous people have been seen and ...
ListenRevisiting Thomas King’s Massey Lectures, Part Two from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
In his second lecture, award-winning author Thomas King continues to look at the breadth and depth of Native experience and imagination. He focuses on Indigenous identity and he grounds it in tales...
ListenRevisiting Thomas King’s Massey Lectures, Part One from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
IDEAS revisits one of the best Massey Lectures, delivered by award-winning author Thomas King. He draws listeners in with his witty and colourful insights into the stories we tell each other. But a...
ListenThe Politics of Theatre: A discussion with New York Times journalists from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The idea that theatre exists to show us the underlying meaning of our actions, while at the same time shaping our society, goes back to ancient times. In this episode of IDEAS, a discussion from th...
ListenDirt on Handwashing: The Legacy of Dr. Semmelweis from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The resistance Ignaz Semmelweis encountered to his life-saving ideas would ultimately lead to his tragic end. With handwashing in the midst of a renaissance in the era of during the coronavirus era...
ListenNorthrop Frye: Return to the Educated Imagination (Pt 1) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
What good is the study of literature? Northrop Frye’s 1962 CBC Massey Lectures were his attempt to answer that age-old question. Frye scholar and friend Deanne Bogdan revisits the lectures and help...
ListenPeace, Order, and Good Geometry from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The story of geometry is bound up in the Renaissance, the rise of nation states, and the expression of absolute power. Geometric designs came to represent order in the universe. But order’s war wit...
ListenMyths on Screen: Hollywood at War, Part 3 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Warning: Explicit Content | As the Twin Towers lay in rubble after Sept. 11, former U.S. president George W. Bush's administration leveraged the influence of Hollywood celebrities to sway the publi...
ListenInside the teenage brain: How science is helping us understand adolescents from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Teenagers can be erratic and emotional. But recent science may just have the answer to why teenagers are the way they are — and it's not just about hormones. This new understanding is changing the ...
ListenOlive Senior delivers prestigious 2019 Margaret Laurence Lecture: A Writer's Life from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Olive Senior was born in Jamaica in 1941, the seventh of 10 children. She went on to become one of Canada’s most acclaimed writers. Hear excerpts from her 2019 Margaret Laurence Lecture, readings ...
ListenThe Cult Movie Canon from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
They’re weird. They break the rules. They’re kinda bad. They are cult movies. Dive into the stories of films from ‘Troll 2’ to ‘The Last Dragon’ to the ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ to learn what drive...
ListenMyths on Screen: Hollywood at War, Part 2 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Warning: Explicit Content | America's losing the Vietnam War shattered the 'heroic myth' that Hollywood had spent decades creating, according to historians and researchers. What followed was an era...
ListenBeyond Tragedy: The living history of Native America from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Warning: Explicit language | The massacre of over 150 Lakota at Wounded Knee in 1890 is often taken to be the “end” of Native American history — a notion unintentionally reinforced by Dee Brown's 1...
ListenBread: The Rise and Fall from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Bread is a simple food and a staple item across the world. Bread is life. But for some, it represents a wrong turn in our species' evolution. Through conversation with bakers, religious leaders, hi...
ListenMyths on Screen: Hollywood at War, Part 1 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
The U.S. military had some little-known help in spinning public perception about it over the last seventy years: Hollywood. This series shows how movies functioned as the unofficial — but massively...
ListenThe Coffee Chronicles: The story of the world’s most popular drink from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
An ordinary cup of Joe just won’t do anymore. It’s now gourmet, fair trade and organic. Whether the method is pour over, French press, or vacuum pumps, coffee is now described with terms like “mout...
ListenJusticia Canadiana: Jean Teillet from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Justice is not blind in Canada’s legal system, argues Métis lawyer Jean Teillet. She says it needs to view Indigenous people fully to render justice fairly.
ListenThe Desert: a well-spring of the imagination from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Deserts cover nearly one-third of the earth's landmass of the earth, but we're still unsure what to make of them. Sometimes we consider them empty wastelands, other times we see them as beautiful l...
ListenEnright Files: What we should have learned from the SARS outbreak from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Seventeen years before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, another mysterious, virulent respiratory illness suddenly appeared — SARS. On the Enright Files, conversations with public health experts ...
ListenThe Great Leveler: Dr. Paul Farmer on the fight for equal health care from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393
Co-founder of Partners in Health Dr. Paul Farmer says the COVID-19 pandemic offers many lessons and opportunities for the world, including a chance to reorient how we think about who deserves acces...
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