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.
621 episodes transcribedAuthoritarian politics continue to intensify. But so do acts of resistance. This podcast focusses on the resisters who are pushing for accountability...
Not everyone gives birth. But everyone is born. Yet we rarely talk about the history of childbirth. So author Lucy Inglis researched its bloody, trium...
Historian Marci Shore doesn't hesitate to use the word 'fascism' to describe the present moment. The former Yale professor left the U.S. after Preside...
Historian Marci Shore doesn't hesitate to use the word 'fascism' to describe the present moment. The former Yale professor, who moved shortly after th...
Seabird biologist Bill Montevecchi has been ranked in the world’s top two per cent of scientists. Montevecchi died at the age of 80 in July 2026. In h...
After seizing power in a 1971 coup, Ugandan military commander Idi Amin promised a return to democracy — but he delivered a brutal dictatorship. Known...
What has become of the America that has for so long been held up as a shining example of ideals? In conversation at the 2026 Aspen Ideas Festival, doc...
Behind every great chatbot are many human workers making decisions on how those chatbots behave and evolve. Recent PhD graduate Noah Khan has been obs...
When Rohingya poet Mayyu Ali saw his name in print for the first time, he thought: "I exist." "Even thought my government doesn't recognize [me] I exi...
Fascism has been called “the aestheti-cization of politics.” Nazis and Italian Fascists both made visual culture, art, even fashion part of their dest...
In 1922, Benito Mussolini took power in Italy. Sustained by a cult of personality and iron-fisted suppression of dissent, Mussolini transformed the na...
They were known as School Cars and Schools on Wheels. Trains that chugged along the railroads and brought schooling to children living in the isolated...
The Trump administration has been targeting higher education for some time now — freezing grants and filing lawsuits against leading universities. But...
A hundred years ago homework was described as a 'sin against childhood.' But the practice is still a staple of our education system. Some parents like...
What happens when original artworks become endless copies? German philosopher Walter Benjamin called it the death of "aura," and his concept predicted...
In pre-independence India, activist B.R. Ambedkar said India would never be free unless caste was eradicated. Today, India is rife with an aggressive...
Gandhi envisioned a free India as a place of communal harmony where each person understood duty and sacrifice. Today, India is rife with an aggressive...
In an era of political polarization and fatigue from ongoing crises, hope is critical. But it's not something you have; it's something you do, argues...
Fact and fiction may seem poles apart but writers Esi Edugyan and Tiya Miles find the two intertwine perfectly in their award-winning storytelling. Bo...
The world is feeling darker and darker these days. So this podcast might be a much-needed balm. It's about hope — a practice that scholar Shannon Murr...
