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's for people who like to think.
425 episodes transcribedFor someone who died more than 2,400 years ago, Herodotus's voice is still very much alive. "He knows the way [a good story] can elevate but also corr...
Political analyst Rachel Maddow and author/activist Rebecca Solnit are sharp observers of Trump 2.0. They both share a common ground: opposition to an...
Physics has been full of astonishing discoveries over the past century. But they open up even bigger mysteries that scientists are working feverishly...
The true story of America is that it was built on a caste system comparable to India’s, says Pulitzer-prize-winning American journalist Isabel Wilkers...
There’s a burgeoning genre of fiction coming from Mexico — stories that merge socio-political history and the impact of drug-related violence with fan...
Even in some of the world’s sturdiest democracies, leaders are deliberately undermining courts to weaken checks on their power. In many cases, the jus...
War criminals, Nazi fugitives, and a viable threat to American democracy — sounds like a classic page-turner but author and lawyer Philippe Sands isn'...
Indigenous Americans on European soil can be found throughout historical records, but historian Caroline Dodds Pennock says they have largely been ign...
In the early 1990s, “woke” was "politically correct," "DEI" was known as "affirmative action,” and the term “cancel culture” had yet to be coined. The...
Ask yourself: can you? It is a question that George Eliot asks over and over through her characters in Middlemarch, a 19th-century novel tha...
Virginia Woolf called George Eliot's novel, Middlemarch “one of the few English books written for grownups.” It’s a book full of characters asking: is...
Egg freezing is one of today’s fastest-growing reproductive technologies. It's seen as a kind of 'fertility insurance' for the future, but that doesn’...
A demonic possession, a do-it-yourself exorcism, and the execution of an accused witch — welcome to daily life in Quebec City, circa 1660. IDEAS digs...
In the aftermath of World War One, French philosopher Simone Weil had a solution to address the fascism that surged across Europe: abolish political p...
*Please note that this episode features descriptions of a sexual assault that some listeners may find disturbing.* Seventeen century artist Artemisia...
In today's fractured world, the many threats facing humanity seems to be an empathy deficit. Writer and journalist Leslie Jamison discusses the compli...
Traditional religious institutions have been in decline since the '60s. As congregations dwindle, more Canadians are identifying as 'spiritual.' Socio...
Leticia Racine calls herself a “Returning Warrior” of the Sixties Scoop. As a child, she was at the centre of a landmark Supreme Court case that...
Chickens are the stars of this podcast today. Our relationship with this living creature, allegedly the closest living relative to the Tyrannosaurus R...
Theatre of the Absurd was born in the postwar era as a recoil against the violent fetish that totalitarian regimes had for “order.” For 75 years, absu...
