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.
488 episodes transcribedRebel architect Frank Gehry believed architecture IS art. He strived to evoke emotion in every design. Last Friday, Gehry died at 96 but he never stop...
Sometimes the universe hands us a gift. Over the past year, our podcast listeners spent a total of 526,915 hours listening to our program. That's 21,9...
"IDEAS is often a surprise" says Cathy Pike. It's why she's been a longtime listener. To our delight, IDEAS was there for her just at the right t...
This podcast features an all-star, and bestselling, lineup of CBC Massey Lecturers from the past decade: Payam Akhavan (2017) and the police officer w...
That's not something you expect to hear in an interview. But the prize-winning author of All That She Carried, Tiya Miles did not hesitate to say...
Not many people like to think about traffic but Joanna Oda says this very topic on IDEAS in 2005 inspired her as an ER doctor. "It helped me unde...
For Afghans, listening to a traditional song can bring them back "home." In 2021, when the Taliban seized power again in Afghanistan, orchestras disba...
“Urbicide” — the intentional killing of a city — is a common and brutal strategy of war, from the levelling of Mariupol, Ukraine to the destruction of...
Hospitality — and hospitals. Two words that share a root, but whose meanings often seem at odds with each other. IDEAS traces the historical roots of...
Hospitality — and hospitals. Two words that share a root, but whose meanings often seem at odds with each other. IDEAS traces the historical roots of...
What do you owe to a stranger who arrives at your door? In ancient Greece, hospitality (or xenia) was seen as a sacred moral imperative. Someone who d...
At age 11, writer Andrew Lam fled Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon. Nearly 45 years later, he returned to a radically different city. He believes "yo...
In more than 40 years on the front lines of international human rights Alex Neve has heard Canada described as ‘the land of human rights’ — and seen t...
Eleanor Roosevelt once said that universal human rights begin in “small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any...
Our inherent human rights belong to us from the moment we are born. There is nothing we need to do to earn them, and they are supposed to apply to us...
The ideals behind the concept of human rights — such as the sacredness of life, reciprocity, justice and fairness — have millennia-old histories. Afte...
Universality is the core promise of human rights: these rights extend to everyone, everywhere. But above all else, this is where we have failed. In hi...
Whether mechanical or digital, a button delivers the promise of power — but it's far from simple. The small and mighty technology has a riveting histo...
When he was eight, 2025 CBC Massey Lecturer Alex Neve watched his mother fight for daycare in Alberta. It’s shaped how he thinks about human rights ev...
There’s history, and then there’s oral history. And when it comes to the impacts of war on those who fight them — oral history opens doors to the past...
