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.
318 episodes transcribedIt’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 sugges...
On the eve of the Second World War, Hitler annexes Austria and escalates antisemitic persecution, Japan wages war on China, and the parallel collapse...
Tested is a new podcast series from CBC and NPR that asks the question, who gets to compete? Since the beginning of women’s sports, there has be...
How should we fill our time, and what is most important to remember? Giller Prize-winning novelist and poet Ian Williams looks at the meaning of life,...
For nearly five years, Turkey imprisoned one of its most significant writers. Fifty-one Nobel laureates called for his release. Now free, the resilien...
Celebrated Turkish writer Ahmet Altan spent almost five years in jail. He wrote his memoir which was smuggled out on bits of paper. This episode aired...
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 perso...
After the First World War, the Western powers create new borders and carve out spheres of influence, leaders from the Global South fight for self-dete...
Arthur Schafer taught ethics to medical students in 1972. His 50-year career put the philosopher at the heart of major ethical debates like MAID. Scha...
Christina Sharpe's award-winning book, Ordinary Notes, explores the complexity of Black life — blending memoir, history, cultural and political critiq...
The Sermon on the Mount is one of the greatest gifts of scripture to humanity; just ask Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Leo Tolstoy. But w...
Insecurity has become a "defining feature of our time," says CBC Massey lecturer Astra Taylor. The Winnipeg-born writer and filmmaker explores how ris...
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 m...
From the interpersonal to the societal: what is reasonableness? And in a democracy, how reasonable can we reasonably demand that others be? Five Canad...
2018 Massey Lecturer Tanya Talaga reflects on the legacy of cultural genocide, and on how the stories of Indigenous peoples offer lessons for Canada t...
Championship soccer games provide some of the most dramatic moments in all of sports. And when the stakes are high, some people choke. IDEAS contribut...
Rome fell, because of... divorce. Or was it immigration? Maybe moral decay. IDEAS producer Matthew Lazin-Ryder explores the political history of 'the...
We have laws against genocide, defined as "the deliberate attempt to erase a national, ethnic, religious or racial group." But how do we make them sti...
In his Massey Lectures, Iranian-Canadian lawyer Payam Akhavan recounts the courage and spirit of his childhood friend, Mona Mahmudnizhad. Mona was exe...
Human rights lawyer Payam Akhavan gave the 2017 Massey Lectures, called In Search of a Better World. As part of the Massey at 60 series, marking six d...
