IDEAS schedule for April 2024
* Please note this schedule is subject to change.
Monday, April 1
WHAT GOOD IS PHILOSOPHY?
"What is good?" is at the heart of philosophy. It's relentlessly present in our everyday lives and underpins all the big questions. Asking the question helps us move toward answers about inclusivity, equality, and who gets a voice at the table. As the circle of those asking "what is good?" widens, the answers expand. What we think of as "good" stretches and contracts. Last year, The Munk School at the University of Toronto hosted philosophers and writers and put philosophy to the test. When it comes to the good, they asked, what good is philosophy? *This episode originally aired on Sept. 8, 2023.
Tuesday, April 2
ROSS GAY ON JOY AND DELIGHT
It might seem odd — or even clueless — to be writing seriously, and joyfully, about joy and delight during this run of one annus horribilis after another. But the award-winning poet, Ross Gay, the author of Inciting Joy and the bestselling Book of Delights, argues that joy and delight are not just entwined with death, sorrow, and grief, they're essential to a meaningful life, especially in the face of so much pain and suffering. In brief, rapturous notes about quotidian delights and essays on the sources and complexities of joy, he suggests an ethics of pleasure, attention, noticing, and human connection that resists the forces that seek to repress and delimit our birthright to live fully.
Wednesday, April 3
BETRAYAL OF FAITH
At a glance, the story looks recent: an Indigenous child taken from his family and community, relocated far away where he's stripped of his culture and language, inculcated into an alien worldview, eventually fails to integrate yet unable to reintegrate back into his original community, develops an abusive relationship with alcohol and then dies tragically young. But this story happened 400 years ago: a young Innu boy was taken to France by Franciscans to learn Latin, French and theology while they were to learn his language and customs with the aim of converting his people and others. We know his name: Pastedechouan. And what we know of his story comes to us through records kept by the 17th century clerics who tried to make use of him, records scoured by University of Ottawa historian, Emma Anderson. Professor Anderson teamed up with contributing producer Kevin Burns to create this documentary that retraces the story of Pastedechouan, ultimately revealing that history has an extremely long reach: what happened to Pastedechouan four centuries ago is a kind of template for residential schools, and their continued legacy.
Thursday, April 4
GHOST CITIZENS: JAMIE CHAI YUN LIEW
As a child, Jamie Chai Yun Liew heard relatives visiting Canada from Southeast Asia tell stories about a female ghost named Pontianak who lives in banana trees and can be cast as either a hero or a villain. As a refugee lawyer and scholar, Liew started to see parallels between the story of Pontianak and the experiences of stateless people. In her book Ghost Citizens: Decolonial Apparitions of Stateless, Foreign and Wayward Figures in Law, she considers how statelessness renders people invisible and precarious — and how states create "ghost citizens." Liew speaks with Nahlah Ayed about speculation in law, how the long aftermath of colonialism still shapes definitions of citizenship today, and other ways of imagining belonging and citizenship.
Friday, April 5
THE NORTH STAR
Montreal was a hotbed of spies and conspirators during the U.S. Civil War. Found on the body of Lincoln's assassin was a money order from the Montreal branch of the Ontario Bank. John Wilkes Booth and his compatriots converged at Montreal's St. Lawrence Hall when they were plotting to kidnap Lincoln. A group of Confederate sympathizers were treated like kings in a Montreal prison. Even Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, headed straight for Montreal after his release from prison. In this episode, Nahlah Ayed and investigative journalist Julian Sher, author of The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots Against Lincoln, tour Montreal's past and present, tracing the city's hidden Confederate past. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 12, 2023.
Monday, April 8
THE VALUE OF GROUP THERAPY
So you need mental health support. Do you seek individual help? Or are you willing to share both a therapist — and your problems — with a group of similarly-struggling strangers? This IDEAS documentary features psychiatrists, scholars, and participants who see the 20th-century practice of group therapy as deserving of greater attention and respect, particularly in this current era of mental health crisis. Done skilfully, they say, "group" can provide acute self-insight and effective help, because it is both a microcosm of society, and a safe place to explore how we behave in relationship to one another. *This episode originally aired on Dec. 18, 2023.
Tuesday, April 9
THE AUTHORITARIAN PERSONALITY
The Authoritarian Personality was a groundbreaking study conducted in the wake of the Second World War by a group of scholars — two of whom escaped antisemitic persecution of the Third Reich — who wanted to understand why so many people had been drawn to fascist leaders. When the study was published in 1950, it rocked the academic world, but before long it fell out of favour during an era of strong economic growth and liberal optimism in the late twentieth century. 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.
Wednesday, April 10
TIYA MILES ON WILD GIRLS
Harvard historian Tiya Miles won many awards and distinctions for her book, All That She Carried, the story of a cotton sack and the three Black women — Rose, her nine-year old daughter Ashley and great-granddaughter Ruth Middleton — whose lives were emblematized by the embroidered words on it. Professor Miles, who's previously been a guest on IDEAS, delivers a talk in Montreal based on her book, followed by an onstage interview with host Nahlah Ayed about her latest work, Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation.
Thursday, April 11
MASSEY AT 60: MICHAEL IGNATIEFF
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 from the 1960s through the end of the 1990s. As part of an ongoing series of episodes marking the 60th anniversary of Massey College, a partner in the Massey Lectures, Michael Ignatieff sits down with former IDEAS host Paul Kennedy to reflect on his talks — and how the rights revolution continues to shape politics today, often in unexpected ways.
Friday, April 12
MICHAEL IGNATIEFF: MASSEY LECTURE
In his 2000 Massey Lectures on The Rights Revolution, Michael Ignatieff confronted the conflicted and sometimes controversial rise of human rights language in Canadian and global politics. His final lecture culminated in a single question that continues to resonate even now: "Has the rights revolution brought us closer together as a nation, or driven us further apart?" We revisit that lecture as part of our series marking the 60th anniversary of Massey College.
Monday, April 15
HUMBOLDT'S GHOST, PART ONE
Two hundred years ago in Prussia, a mid-level bureaucrat, Wilhelm Von Humboldt, pulled off an incredible feat. In only 18 months, Humbolt created the world's first-ever public education system. The template is still used around the world today. And yet most of us have never even heard of him. At the heart of Humboldt's philosophy of education was the concept of Bildung. Simply put, it's one's potential. Humbolt wanted students to learn how to reach their full inner potential, their Bildung. He believed in the power of the individual. And that the purpose of education was to create independent, critical thinkers. In the first of this two-part series, IDEAS contributor and economic historian Karl Turner looks at the remarkable life of Wilhelm von Humboldt.
Tuesday, April 16
HUMBOLDT'S GHOST, PART TWO
In part two of our series, Humbolt's Ghost, IDEAS contributor and economic historian Karl Turner examines how Wilhelm Von Humboldt's public education system came to be adopted around the world. And how the basics of his template are still in use, although the core of his philosophy of education, Bildung, has been somewhat lost. Turner also asks if this 200-year-old system is equipped to meet the challenging demands of the 21st century.
Wednesday, April 17
THE HISTORY OF AERIAL BOMBING
The bombing of civilians has been called one of the "great scandals" of modern warfare. From the British bombing of Iraq in the 1920s, to the American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, to the Israeli bombing of Gaza now, justifications of the mass killing of civilians have been made on strategic and moral grounds. But where did this idea originate? And why, despite nearly a century of developing laws and conventions protecting the sanctity of human life, does aerial bombing remain a compelling military strategy?
Thursday, April 18
VIU LECTURE: RILEY YESNO ON THE RECONCILIATION GENERATION
The Yellowhead Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University has assessed that just over a dozen of 94 calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report have been achieved. Researcher Riley Yesno notes that many Indigenous young people — the 'reconciliation generation' who came of age at this time — are no longer willing to wait. Instead, this generation seeks transformative, even revolutionary, change: reclaiming ownership of the land, and going beyond merely surviving, to thriving. The queer Anishinaabe scholar, writer and commentator from Eabametoong First Nation delivers a keynote talk on this subject at Vancouver Island University, and speaks with IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed.
Friday, April 19
"THIS CITY IS TRYING TO KILL ME": ROBIN MAZUMDER
Robin Mazumder once worked as an occupational therapist. In trying to help a depressed client find urban connection, in guiding another man with disabilities across a wide street in winter — he became convinced that urban environments often have a destructive effect on people's health and wellbeing. So Mazumder became an environmental neuroscientist, using technology to measure urban stress. That science helps him passionately advocate for cities to be more equitable, healthy, and human-scale, particularly for children and the vulnerable. He details his professional and personal motivations in a conversation with Nahlah Ayed, alongside excerpts from his 2023 Zeidler-Evans Lecture, called A City That Can Save Us. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 16, 2023.
Monday, April 22
CALLING THEM BACK
The Yukon River is home to the longest — and once largest — migration of Chinook salmon on the planet. Close to half a million fish used to enter the mouth of this river every summer, making their way more than 3,000 kilometres from the Bering Sea across Alaska and into the Yukon, to spawn in the streams where they'd once hatched. The Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation depended on these salmon for their livelihood — they were also an essential part of their culture, of their understanding of the world. But now the salmon are gone, the fish camps are abandoned, and an entire culture with its way of life is in peril.
Tuesday, April 23
MURDER, MADNESS AND MARRIAGE: THE SENSATIONAL WORLD OF WILKIE COLLINS
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, and to upend conventional thinking about society, the home, and the recesses of the human mind. Two hundred years after Wilkie Collins's birth, UBC Journalism Director Kamal Al-Solaylee explores his work and its enduring power to make us look twice at the world we think we know. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 8, 2024.
Wednesday, April 24
THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF VIOLENT MEN | MIGLENA TODOROVA
The play Dana H. tells the true story of a chaplain in a psychiatric ward who is abducted by one of her patients, assaulted and held captive for five months. It's been described as a chilling exploration of survival and storytelling. And it also makes us ask what leads men to commit such acts. In a public lecture for the IDEAS at Crow's Theatre' series, OISE professor Miglena Todorova explores violence against women as a historic and collective act — and why efforts to enshrine political and economic gender equality have so far failed to foster new cultural, educational, and spiritual environments that will ensure safer lives for women around the world.
Thursday, April 25
MASSEY AT 60: RON DEIBERT
In 2020, Citizen Lab founder and director Ron Deibert presented the CBC Massey Lectures, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. His talks expose the disturbing influence and impact of the internet on politics, the economy, the environment, and humanity. As part of an ongoing series of events marking the 60th anniversary of Massey College, a partner in the Massey Lectures, Ron Deibert sits down with IDEAS producer Pauline Holdsworth to reflect back on his lectures, what's changed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how spyware and surveillance are changing the nature of authority today.
Friday, April 26
RON DEIBERT: MASSEY LECTURE
In his 2020 CBC Massey Lectures, Citizen Lab founder and director Ron Deibert asked us to think about how to mitigate the harms of social media, and in doing so, construct a viable communications ecosystem that supports civil society and contributes to the betterment of the human condition. We revisit his sixth and final lecture, where he explores the kinds of restraints we need to place on government and corporations — and on our own endless appetite for data.
Monday, April 29
IDEAS FROM THE TRENCHES: RE-SETTING THE BODY'S CLOCK
After the invention of the light bulb came… the invention of yet more light bulbs, a project that today leads scientists into fascinating new questions about the effect of different lights on the cells inside the relative darkness of the body. Kritika Vashishtha shows two IDEAS producers around her laboratory inside an airplane, where she's been pursuing a cure for jetlag through the use of a recently invented variety of light and the creation of personalized 'light schedules.' For her next trick, Kritika wants to apply her discoveries to space travel and the potential human settlement of the planet Mars. This episode continues our long-running series, IDEAS from the Trenches, showcasing fascinating new work by Canadian PhD students.
Tuesday, April 30
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SALMAN RUSHDIE
In his sweeping novels, Salman Rushdie plays imaginatively with time and fate, character and history. The author's own life story, however, has often veered dangerously out of his control. A fatwa issued against him in 1989 by Iran's religious ruler sent him underground for a decade. Then, after two and a half decades of restored public life, he was almost killed in a knife attack. IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed talks to Salman Rushdie about his memoir Knife, and the principles of free expression that have fuelled his writing and thinking.
