IDEAS schedule for August 2023
* Please note this schedule is subject to change.
Tuesday, August 1
SUZUKI'S SURVIVAL GUIDE: A RETROSPECTIVE | NAKED APE TO SUPERSPECIES
Never before in the four billion-year history of life on Earth has a single species been able to alter the geological, biological and physical features of the planet. As David Suzuki puts it, "we have evolved from naked ape to superspecies." This first episode from his 1999 IDEAS series, The Naked Ape, explores the impact of human culture on the natural world. Find more episodes from David Suzuki's radio archive, here.
Wednesday, August 2
THE ODYSSEY OF SATURN THE ALLIGATOR
A reptile with geopolitical resonance. That's what this episode is about. Saturn was an alligator supposedly Hitler's favourite animal which was "liberated" from the Berlin zoo when the Red Army invaded Germany towards the end of the Second World War, and relocated it in Moscow. The historical record doesn't really support any of the story, but it continued to linger, first with Soviet citizens hurling abuse, as well as debris, at the hapless alligator as a proxy for Hitler, and then later as a "re-educated" model of what Soviet resistance and perseverance means. The creature died in 2020, but Putin's invasion of Ukraine was to counterattack Nazi forces. Not neo-Nazis, not Nazi sympathizers, but Nazis. The old war against the old enemy, of which Saturn was once the four-legged embodiment. Contributors David Zane Mairowitz and Malgorzata Zerwe bring us this documentary with voices from Louisiana swamps, and zoos in Berlin and Moscow. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 10, 2023.
Thursday, August 3
THE SHOCK OF THE NEW | THE YEAR 1947: FRACTURES AND TECTONIC SHIFTS
The year is 1947. The Partition of India creates the largest mass migration in human history. The newly-created United Nations votes to partition British Palestine. The Cold War divides the world into opposing camps, and empires collapse and retreat. The final episode in our series The Shock of the New, exploring how change happens. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 4, 2022.
Friday, August 4
THE NEW WORLD DISORDER: THE RISE OF THE STRONGMAN
Democracy is shriveling and illiberalism is on the rise. We've been watching this unfold for more than three decades but the sense of urgency has, perhaps, never been so great. In this episode, we hear from people on the front line of the fight against rising authoritarianism — how they understand the struggle and what they're doing to survive it. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 29, 2022. Find more episodes from The New World Disorder series, here.
Monday, August 7
2022 MASSEY LECTURES | ON DEATH
Tomson Highway's fifth and final Massey lecture is titled On Death. Christianity, he argues, offers a dismal vision of the afterlife. The Greeks offered something a bit more positive. But in the Indigenous view of our life after death, he says, when we die, we stay right here on Earth, "smack in the middle of that circle that is our garden, the one we were given the responsibility to care for when we came into this world as newborns." *This episode originally aired on Nov. 18, 2022.
Tuesday, August 8
SUZUKI'S SURVIVAL GUIDE: A RETROSPECTIVE | THE 'LOVE' ECONOMY
The field of economics is limited by how it measures success. It doesn't take into account the things that sustain life that can't clearly be measured. The Earth and its atmosphere provide infinite services free of charge — the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil that sustains countless life forms on Earth. It also doesn't include the impact of community bonds, relationships, and love. This episode explores new ways to think of growth and society's holistic well-being. Find more episodes from David Suzuki's radio archive, here.
Wednesday, August 9
THE WIFE OF BATH
A group of pilgrims meet on the road to Canterbury. There's a knight, a miller, a clerk, a cook, a parson — 30 in all. To pass the time, they tell stories, and the reward for the teller of the best tale will be a free meal at the Tabard Inn. One of the most arresting characters in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is the Wife of Bath, who, before she even gets to her story, tells her listeners at great length exactly what she thinks about marriage in general, and men in particular. She's been called the first fully-formed woman in English literature: she's smart, bawdy, funny, successful, and confident. Seven hundred years later, the Wife of Bath remains an inspiration to writers today. *This episode originally aired on April 3, 2023.
Thursday, August 10
GETTING PAST POLARIZATION: ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
In the past, people of differing political opinions explained their views, and tried to bring others onside. Now, people simply write each other off. It's not working, according to journalist and author Anand Giridharadas (Winners Take All). He says that in polarized and crisis-ridden America, democracy is clearly at stake. So his new book profiles The Persuaders: groups and individuals working to address injustice yet bridge divides, with a politics "fierce enough to change things (yet) expansive enough to change the minds to get there." He analyzes this approach in a conversation with IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed, recorded before an audience at the Toronto Public Library. *This originally aired on Nov. 23, 2022.
Friday, August 11
REITH LECTURE 1: CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE
"We fear the mob but the mob is us." The BBC Reith Lectures return, and this year's theme is The Four Freedoms.
In his 1941 State of the Union speech, President Franklin Roosevelt argued against the isolationist policies of the United States, and tried to justify American involvement in the Second World War. He invoked four concepts of freedom that all people are owed:
Freedom of speech
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want
And freedom from fear
In the first lecture, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi-Aidichie analyzes the state of free speech today, including the phenomenon some call "cancel culture." She argues that moral courage is required to resist threats to freedom of speech, be they political, legal or social. *This episode originally aired on March 23, 2023.
Monday, August 14
INDIGENOUS SEXUALITY AND GENDER
In his lecture On Sex and Gender, playwright Tomson Highway explored the joys and nuances of sex, sexuality, and gender, through Indigenous perspectives. In this panel discussion following the Massey Lectures, Tomson Highway, Cree scholar and two-spirit activist Harlan Pruden, and Cree-Metis comedian Sasha Mark discuss Indigenous sexuality in the aftermath of colonialism — from Cree mythology to the Vancouver dating scene. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 21, 2022.
Tuesday, August 15
SUZUKI'S SURVIVAL GUIDE: A RETROSPECTIVE | WONDERS OF WATER
Water is essential for our survival; it's an integral part of our bodies. It is familiar to the point that those of us who have lots of it take water very much for granted. But it is also at the heart of some of the most profound mysteries of existence. How deep is the ocean, and what is it really like in the darkest reaches? What are whales doing when they sing? And why do we have so much trouble taking care of this precious and crucial resource? Find more episodes from David Suzuki's radio archive, here.
Wednesday, August 16
KILLAM PRIZE WINNER: CARL E. JAMES
The Killam Prizes are Canada's most prestigious set of awards for pre-eminent scholars in all the major fields of study. Carl E. James is the 2022 winner in the Social Science category. He's the country's leading expert on schools and universities, especially as viewed through the lives of racialized students. As Professor James insists, we must notice the processes, the stories in motion, behind what can appear to be stubborn facts or flaws in Canadian society. *This episode originally aired on Oct. 28, 2022.
Thursday, August 17
IN DEFENCE OF DEMOCRACY: NAHEED NENSHI
Over the past several decades the west's love affair with democracy seems to have gone stale. Today, democratic backsliding is not only commonplace, it seems to be speeding up. The trend isn't happening in a vacuum, of course. It goes hand in hand with economic instability, conflict, climate change, and shifting demographics. These factors change how we perceive the societies we live in. It can be easy to choose seemingly clear answers from a "strong" leader over a messy democracy. Canada's Samara Centre for Democracy sees this backsliding in Canada as well. The centre's research points to partisan politics, alienated citizens, and regional differences as some reasons why Canadians are increasingly disaffected. In its Defence of Democracy public lecture, the Samara Centre hosted former mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi. After his lecture, IDEAS host, Nahlah Ayed, had an opportunity to ask Mr. Nenshi about the possibility of renewing civic purpose in Canada. *This episode originally aired on Dec. 9, 2022.
Friday, August 18
REITH LECTURE 2: ROWAN WILLIAMS
"Modern societies have settled for lukewarm tolerance." In the second BBC Reith Lecture, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams analyzes the state of freedom of worship in Western society. He argues that secular society has embraced a watered-down definition of religious freedom: the freedom to hold private beliefs, and to gather with others who share those beliefs. Essentially, that religion is no different from a hobby or leisure activity. What's missing, he says, is the freedom to behave in ways consistent with faith, and act, speak, and argue in society from a place of religious conviction. *This episode originally aired on March 30, 2023.
Monday, August 21
LEFT IS NOT WOKE: SUSAN NEIMAN
"Woke," a term that began on the political left, has largely become pejorative term, often used by the political right, to smear left-wing extremism, real or imagined: an intransigent moralism that causes some people to lose entire careers over a single verbal transgression. How did this happen? That's exactly the question, or one of them, that philosopher Susan Neiman seeks to answer in her book, Left Is Not Woke. Professor Neiman is the Director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany, and situates herself firmly on the left, politically and philosophically. She argues that "wokeism" is foundationally wrong, and short-circuits what it means to be on the left. She was interviewed onstage at the Toronto Public Library as part of the Provocations Ideas Festival. *This episode originally aired on April 12, 2023.
Tuesday August 22
SUZUKI'S SURVIVAL GUIDE: A RETROSPECTIVE | LIFE AND DEATH
Death is a part of life…and as such, it is all around us. We are fascinated by death in popular culture, but how many of us actually understand death, decay, and renewal as a natural process? In this episode of Suzuki's Survival Guide: A Retrospective from 2010, David Suzuki takes an unflinching look at death and decomposition, at the way cells die to make way for new life within us, and at what happens to a carrot after we harvest it and eat it. All to unlock the cycle in which the things we are made of are never wasted. Find more episodes from David Suzuki's radio archive, here.
Wednesday, August 23
ON SAVAGE SHORES
The spring of 1493 saw the first recorded visit to Europe by Indigenous people from the Western hemisphere. Over the next century, tens of thousands made the journey. In many cases, they came as captives facing years of enslavement on the European continent. Others were diplomats. Some lived in European monasteries. All faced the danger of European diseases. British historian Caroline Dodds Pennock spent a decade collecting evidence of the widespread Indigenous presence in Portugal, Spain, France, and England in the hundred years before Britain first attempted to establish its first North American colony. *This episode originally aired on April 5, 2023.
Thursday, August 24
MUHAMMAD IQBAL
At the start of the 20th century, Britain had been in India for nearly 300 years — with almost half that time ruling the country. It would stay for five decades more. The alienating force of colonialism had upended the way Indians thought about themselves and their relationships to each other. But change was coming. It would require reconciling the inheritances of British colonialism and modernity with the long histories of India's peoples. The poet-philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal, would spend decades on this reconciliation project. While he's popularly known as the intellectual founder of Pakistan, his greater fame is for his philosophical works in English and his poetry, both in Urdu and Persian. In this episode, IDEAS looks at the Indian poet-philosopher, Muhammad Iqbal, one of the greatest South Asian thinkers of the 20th century. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 25, 2023.
Friday, August 25
REITH LECTURES 3: DARREN MCGARVEY
The BBC Reith Lectures continue with Darren McGarvey, Scottish writer and musician, also known as the rapper, Loki. This year's lectures focus on "The Four Freedoms" — a concept described by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941. While arguing for greater US involvement in the Second World War, Roosevelt invoked four fundamental rights that he believed all people are owed: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Analyzing the state of freedom from want, McGarvey says it's unreasonable to expect governments to be compassionate toward people living in poverty; governments are hard-wired to avoid compassion. Using his own experiences with addiction and deprivation, he argues that political debates over poverty obscure the role of the individual in improving their own circumstances. *This episode originally aired on April 6, 2023.
Monday, August 28
RICHARD OVENDEN DEFENDS LIBRARIES
Ukrainian libraries flattened by Russian missiles. Public records gone with the click of a mouse. Banned texts and bookshelves emptied in U.S. classrooms. Attacks on public knowledge and free expression have occurred throughout human history, but Richard Ovenden is sounding the alarm once more. In a talk given at the Toronto Public Library as part of Freedom to Read week, he calls libraries and archives "the front line of defence." IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed asks Ovenden — Director of the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford, and author of Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge — if that is their role alone. *This episode originally aired on March 21, 2023.
Tuesday Aug 29
SUZUKI'S SURVIVAL GUIDE: A RETROSPECTIVE | AIR AND ATMOSPHERE
Air of course is all around us. We move through it without noticing it. Oxygen is the gas we need in order to survive. But there was a time, about 2.7 billion years ago, when there was no oxygen on the Earth. It took hundreds of millions of years, but the carbon cycle and the circulation of oxygen as we know it exists today because of plants, beginning with the tiniest blue-green bacteria. And that is just the start of the integral relationship we living creatures have with the air. On Suzuki's Survival Guide: A Retrospective, an episode from 2010 called The Last Breath, we follow a single breath in its journey around the world, explore how an ice-free Arctic will change life on Earth, and David Suzuki sits down with Margaret Atwood for an entertaining chat conversation about breath, life, and death. Find more episodes from David Suzuki's radio archive, here.
Wednesday Aug 30
NOWHERE LEFT TO RUN
Thirty years ago the world's nations met in Rio for the Earth Summit to take stock of how rich nations and industries were changing the earth's climate for the worse. Small island nations formed an alliance to say with a collective voice that they were afraid of drowning. They needed help. Three decades on, those small island nations along with the world's vulnerable countries are battling super floods, wildfires, and heat waves. Climate change long ago went from being a fear to being an experience. At the most recent global meeting on climate change, COP27, vulnerable countries counted a win, sort of, with the establishment of a fund to pay for loss and damage brought on by climate change. All they need now is for rich nations to actually pay up. But can a conversation about "loss and damage" go deep enough to address moral responsibility? And without that moral piece, can there ever be climate justice? *This episode originally aired on Dec. 19, 2022.
Thursday, August 31
SCIENTIST ADAM RUTHERFORD ON EUGENICS
As a genetics student, Adam Rutherford conducted his research in the Galton Lab at University College London. It was named for Victorian polymath Sir Francis Galton — an influential scientific inventor, but one who also coined the term "eugenics" and was a proponent of the scientific racism that sought to breed out "undesirable" characteristics in human populations. Yet eugenic thinking didn't start with Galton, nor end with the Nazis. And it was compelling to an astonishing list of major Western thinkers, writers, and politicians of every stripe. Now a professor of genetics, Adam Rutherford sees such thinking in play even today, in everything from forced sterilizations, to the politics of gene editing. The author and BBC host talks with Nahlah Ayed about the scientific and ethical issues fuelling his latest book, Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics. *This episode originally aired on Jan 20, 2023.
Friday, Sept 1
REITH LECTURES 4: FIONA HILL
The fourth and final BBC Reith Lecture features Fiona Hill, British-American foreign affairs specialist and intelligence official under three US presidential administrations. Analyzing the concept of "freedom from fear," she compares living under the threat of nuclear war in the 1980's to the geopolitical situation today, and says Russian President Vladimir Putin is a master at manipulating fear. She argues fear is born of ignorance and misinformation, and the best way to be free of it is education. *This episode originally aired on April 13, 2023.
