Ideas

Civility is under threat, authoritarianism and autocrats are on the rise and there's an erosion of institutional trust. Three pre-eminent speakers join IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed to discuss how Canada and other countries can promote respect and protect liberal democracy. 

You can’t pay rent with experimental poetry, so Hilary Peach trained as a welder. Twenty-plus years on, she’s now a boiler inspector, poet, and author of an award-winning memoir, Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood. Peach talks about the joys and contradictions of being an outsider inside the trades.

Salman Rushdie sees reality through the lens of time. There are the months after the nearly-fatal attack of August 2022 that he details in his memoir Knife. And the decade following the Iranian state’s February 1989 fatwa against him. In this conversation with Nahlah Ayed, he describes hinge moments in his uncannily storied life.

Canadian PhD graduate Kritika Vashishtha invented a new colour of light and combined it with artificial intelligence to fool the body into shifting time zones faster — creating a possible cure for jet lag. She tells IDEAS how this method could also help astronauts on Mars. *This episode is part of our series Ideas from the Trenches, which showcases fascinating new work by Canadian PhD students.

In 2020, CBC Massey lecturer and tech expert Ron Deibert asked us to consider how to mitigate the harms of social media and construct a viable communications ecosystem that supports civil society. We revisit his final Massey lecture that explores the kinds of restraints we need to place on government and corporations — and on our own endless appetite for data.

Citizen Lab founder and director Ron Deibert reflects on what’s changed in the world of spyware, surveillance, and social media since he delivered his 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. *This episode is part of an ongoing series of episodes marking the 60th anniversary of Massey College, a partner in the Massey Lectures.

What shapes the perpetrators of violence against women? And why haven’t efforts to achieve political and economic equality been enough to stop the violence? As part of our series,IDEAS at Crow’s Theatre, professor Miglena Todorova explores violence against women — and why efforts to enshrine political and economic gender equality have failed.

Once, there were half a million salmon in the Yukon River, but now they're almost gone. For the Little Salmon Carmacks River Nation, these salmon are an essential part of their culture — and now their livelihood is in peril. IDEASshares their story as they struggle to keep their identity after the loss of the salmon migration.

Indigenous activist Riley Yesno addresses the hopes, disappointments, accomplishments and misuses of ‘reconciliation’ in post-TRC Canada. The Anishnaabe scholar says Indigenous youth who came of age at this time are "meant to be responsible for seeing it through to its next stage."

The bombing of civilians has been called one of the "great scandals" of modern warfare. So why, despite nearly a century of drafting laws and signing conventions protecting the sanctity of human life, does bombing civilians remain a widespread military tactic?  

IDEAS continues to explore Wilhelm von Humboldt’s public education system with guests, including acclaimed author Gabor Maté, who is a former English teacher. Is this 200-year-old system equipped to meet the challenging demands of the 21st century? And does it still reflect Humboldt’s ideals, especially at the university level?*This is part two of a two-part series.

Two hundred years ago, Wilhelm von Humboldt created the public education system as we know it today. At the heart of his philosophy of education was the concept of Bildung — reaching one's inner potential. Yet over the years, as his public education system was adopted, Bildung may well have been the critical piece left out. *This is part one of a two-part series.

In his 2000 Massey Lectures on The Rights Revolution, Michael Ignatieff confronted the conflicted rise of human rights language in Canadian and global politics. "Has the rights revolution brought us closer together as a nation, or driven us further apart?" he asks in his final Massey lecture. We revisit this talk, as part of our series marking the 60th anniversary of Massey College.

Twenty-four years ago, Massey lecturer Michael Ignatieff delivered five talks that explored the powerful rise of the language of 'rights' in Canada and other industrialized nations. Michael Ignatieff speaks with formerIDEAShost Paul Kennedy to reflect on his talks — and how the rights revolution continues to shape politics today, often in unexpected ways. *This episode is part of an ongoing series of episodes marking the 60th anniversary of Massey College, a partner in the Massey Lectures.

We've dropped this bonus podcast into the feed to announce that Canadian writer Ian Williams is this year’s Massey lecturer. He spoke with Q host Tom Power to tell us why he’s chosen the topic of 'conversations' for his lecture series, how listening can be a courageous act, and why he believes it’s important to have difficult conversations, even at the risk of offending people.

Harvard historian Tiya Miles believes the more girls and women are outdoors, the more fulfilling their lives will be. In her book, Wild Girls, Miles shows how girls who found self-understanding in the natural world became women who changed America.

A groundbreaking study conducted in the wake of the Second World War by a group of scholars rocked the academic world when it was published in 1950 — but fell out of favour. Now a new generation of scholars is reviving the lessons of The Authoritarian Personality to understand the politics of our time. *This episode originally aired on April 4, 2022.

What do ghost stories capture about the experience of being stateless? IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed speaks with lawyer and scholar Jamie Chai Yun Liew on how states create “ghost citizens” — and how the long aftermath of colonialism still shapes definitions of citizenship today.

Pastedechouan was an Innu boy taken to France by Catholic clergymen in 1620. What happened to him 400 years ago may well be the template that would later become the residential school system. IDEASretraces the story of Pastedechouan, revealing that history has an extremely long reach.

For award-winning poet and bestselling author Ross Gay, joy and delight aren’t frivolous or a privilege. He argues they’re absolutely essential to a meaningful life — especially in the face of grief, sadness and suffering. 

Nearly a decade after Russia annexed Crimea, Russia’s war on Ukraine is entering its third year. As Putin is starting yet another term — Russian opposition activist Gary Kasparov’s warnings from his book, Winter is Coming, are playing out in real time. Nahlah Ayed speaks with Garry Kasparov.

“We face a continual tension between holding the government to account, and not wanting the enemy to undermine us by exploiting bad news," says Ukrainian journalist Veronika Melkozerova. She delivered this year's Peter Stursberg Foreign Correspondents Lecture, focusing her talk on what Ukrainian journalists confront daily: patriotism versus journalism.

Kate Beaton and her family have deep roots in hard-working, rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. In her 2024 Henry Kreisel Memorial Lecture, the popular cartoonist points out what is lost when working-class voices are shut out of opportunities in the worlds of arts, culture, and media.

In conversation withIDEAShost Nahlah Ayed, the 2023 Massey lecturer Astra Taylor explains how her early years in the unschooling movement shaped her worldview and how Occupy Wall Street taught her that 'thinking' and 'doing' go hand in hand. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 7, 2023.*

Philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain brought up an important question during the 1993 CBC Massey Lectures: is democracy as we know it in danger? Author and critic Randy Boyagoda andIDEASproducer Sean Foley revisit Elshtain's lectures.*This episode is part of a series of conversations with — and about — former Massey Lecturers to mark the 60th anniversary of Massey College, a partner in the CBC Massey Lectures.

In a world where peace and justice can be hard to come by, The Hague in The Netherlands projects something special: the city is a base for several world courts, as well as non-governmental organizations, charities and non-profits. It's even earned itself the title of the "City of Peace and Justice." In The Fire Within Us, IDEAS takes a look at why some organizations call The Hague home.

A conversation with Winnipeg Poet Laureate Chimwemwe Undi about home, belonging, racism, living downtown, and about poetry as a vehicle for life’s big questions — as her first collection of poetry, Scientific Marvel, is set to be published.

Giller Prize-winning novelist and poet Ian Williams (Reproduction) explores the relationship between the past and future, inspired by the Crow's Theatre's production of Anton Chekhov's classic drama, Uncle Vanya. This episode is part of a public lecture series called IDEAS at Crow's Theatre.

2018 Massey Lecturer Tanya Talaga reflects on the legacy of cultural genocide, and on how the stories of Indigenous peoples offer lessons for Canada today. *This episode is part of a series of conversations with — and about — former Massey Lecturers to mark the 60th anniversary of Massey College, a partner in the CBC Massey Lectures.

The book may well be the greatest invention since the wheel, according to author Irene Vallejo. She traces the history of this miraculous invention with a book of her own, Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World.

An Ontario trucking union predicts a shortage of 30,000 truckers in Canada as old hands retire faster than new ones take on the job. IDEASproducer Tom Howell visits a trucking school in northern Ontario, where recruits consider their options, and the road ahead.

Christina Sharpe's award-winning book, Ordinary Notes, explores the complexity of Black life — blending memoir, history, cultural and political critique. She argues that the experience of Black people is misunderstood — but can be contested, and healed, by Black creativity, and community.

A century after the founding of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, the sounds of Black gospel — which from its very beginnings has been steeped in the idea of community — echo at last, from its classrooms. Documentary producer Alisa Siegel takes us into that room where Black gospel is helping to transform the way that students learn, create, and perform music.

More than two years after a devastating fire, IDEAS visited St'át'imc territory around Lillooet, B.C. to learn how 21st-century wildfires are reshaping the landscape. This two-part series follows the work of the northern St'át'imc Nations, land guardians, and scientists from the Indigenous Ecology Lab at UBC as they seek to document the effects of wildfires and chart a new future.

More than two years after a devastating fire, IDEAS visited St'át'imc territory around Lillooet, B.C. to learn how 21st-century wildfires are reshaping the landscape. This two-part series follows the work of the northern St'át'imc Nations, land guardians, and scientists from the Indigenous Ecology Lab at UBC as they seek to document the effects of wildfires and chart a new future.

"In the dark times, will there also be singing?" Bertolt Brecht once asked. World literature scholar Sandeep Banerjee explores the power of art in times of war — and how ghost stories can help us imagine another world. This talk kicks off a new public lecture series called IDEAS at Crow’s Theatre. 

Marriage is on the decline in Canada. And in heterosexual unions, it’s women who more often initiate divorce, and wait longer to remarry. Why is marriage not working for women?

In the thorny thickets of love and desire, how do Shakespeare’s characters talk to each other? And what’s changed in 400 years? From the Stratford Festival, IDEAS explores the challenges around issues of sex and gender in staging Shakespeare’s plays.

Fears of technological overreach, environmental decline, and the violent rise of the irrational: our 21st-century anxieties were anticipated in an unlikely 20th-century horror metaphor. “The Birds” – a haunting 1953 short story by Daphne duMaurier, and the truly bizarre 1963 Alfred Hitchcock movie that it inspired. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 6, 2023.

Lois Wilson has lived many lives during her 96 years: a United Church Minister, a Senator, a human rights advocate and an inspiration to many — exhibiting a humility that can only be described as steadfast. For the Sake of the Common Good: Essays in Honour of Lois Wilson is a tribute to the life and work of a remarkable Canadian. 

Considered one of the first writers of mysteries and the father of detective fiction, Wilkie Collins used the genres to investigate the rapidly changing world around him. UBC Journalism professor Kamal Al-Solaylee explores his work and its enduring power to make us look twice at the world we think we know.

Is group therapy underused in treating mental health? Psychiatrist Molyn Leszcz calls it an “incredibly powerful” approach, where patients heal each other and themselves through support and, sometimes, challenge. Scholar Jess Cotton agrees, tracing the radical roots of an idea that she thinks could hold a greater place today.

For musician and radio producer, David Schulman, the violin can swing and sing like nothing else. Schulman recently travelled to the north of Italy to try and discover the original trees from which Antonio Stradivari made his masterpieces. It’s a journey of surprise and delight. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 28, 2023.

Insecurity has become a "defining feature of our time," says 2023 CBC Massey lecturer Astra Taylor. She explores how rising inequality, declining mental health, and the threat of authoritarianism, originate from a social order built on insecurity. In this episode, Astra Taylor answers audience questions from the cross-Canada tour. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 27, 2023.

Insecurity has become a "defining feature of our time," says CBC Massey lecturer Astra Taylor. The Winnipeg-born writer and filmmaker explores how rising inequality, declining mental health, the climate crisis, and the threat of authoritarianism originate from a social order built on insecurity. In her first lecture, she explores the existential insecurity we can’t escape — and the manufactured insecurity imposed on us from above.

In Astra Taylor's second Massey Lecture, she argues our social order runs on insecurity. But we’re also guaranteed the right to “security of the person.” The wealthy barons of the past and present have defined what security means for themselves — but the rest of us, ordinary commoners, have fought for something else instead.

It’s a paradox — we live in the most prosperous era in human history, but it’s also an era of profound insecurity. Massey lecturer Astra Taylor suggests that history shows that increased material security helps people be more open-minded, tolerant, and curious. But rising insecurity does the reverse — it drives us apart.

The burning of fossil fuels causes the past, present and future to collide in destructive ways. In her fourth CBC Massey Lecture, Astra Taylor tells us that as the climate alters, evolved biological clocks erratically speed up or slow down, causing plants and animals to fall out of sync. In a world this out of joint, how could we possibly feel secure? But there is a path forward.

Human beings will never be totally secure, especially not on a planet that has been destabilized. In Astra Taylor's final Massey Lecture, she offers some hope and solutions. Taylor suggests cultivating an ethic of insecurity — one that embraces our existential insecurity. The experience of insecurity, she says, can offer us a path to wisdom — a wisdom that can guide not only our personal lives but also our collective endeavours.

“Sometimes I think this city is trying to kill me…” That’s what a man on the margins once told Robin Mazumder who left his healthcare career behind to become an environmental neuroscientist. He now measures stress, to advocate for wider well-being in better-designed cities.

Indigenous filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin has witnessed nearly a century of change. At 91 years old she continues to produce documentaries featuring Indigenous stories and voices. The Abenaki artist delivered the 2023 Beatty Lecture at McGill University. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 7, 2023.