IDEAS schedule for August 2025

* Please note this schedule is subject to change.

Friday, August 1 

SLOWING DOWN IN URGENT TIMES: UPEI Murray Lecture
Educators are wired for hope according to professor of early modern literature Jessica Riddell. In her lecture delivered at the University of Prince Edward Island, she underscores the importance of slowing down in urgent times. And urges educators to to teach hope, share it, and to imagine a better future. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 27, 2024.

Each week this summer, IDEAS is presenting five episodes around a special theme. 

We're calling this week an Ode to Joy — ideas about resilience, the good life — and, once found, how to maintain it.

Monday, August 4

HOW TO FLOURISH IN A BROKEN WORLD
The world is full of problems. We talk about them all the time. It seems like there's always someone yelling about our broken healthcare and out-of-reaching housing. Democracy is in shambles and the planet is dying. Is it actually possible to fix this mess? In this episode, we hear from people working to fix our most intractable problems at a time when it can feel easier to just give up. *This episode originally aired on Sep 21, 2023.

Tuesday, August 5

PHILOSOPHY IN THE KITCHEN AND PUB: A TALK BY LEWIS GORDON
We tend to view philosophy as a formal endeavour. Not so, says Lewis Gordon. At the invitation of Newfoundland's Memorial University, the Afro-Jewish philosopher talked about some of his ideas from the music stage at the Ship Pub in St. John's. He explains why the setting is a fitting one for philosophy, historically… and for this philosopher, specifically. Gordon is a Jamaica-born, Bronx-raised, world-traveled academic, political thinker, and musician, and the author of Fear of Black Consciousness. Arguing that philosophy has important things to offer everyone, he riffs on Greek and Africana philosophy, touching on topics such as how food preparation connects to philosophical conversation, and how different ways of drumming seven beats makes a "transcendental argument." *This episode originally aired on May 26, 2023.

Wednesday, August 6

MUSIC, JOY, AND THE GOOD LIFE: DANIEL CHUA  
Is music joy? It's not a simple question. From Confucius to Saint Augustine, and from Beethoven to the blues, renowned musicologist Daniel Chua explores the ancient correlation between music and joy — a relationship with deep cosmic and theological dimensions. Chua takes listeners on an insightful and delightful quest to discover if music can still be considered joy in our complex modern world. *This episode originally aired on May 19, 2025.

Thursday, August 7

THE DEATH OF LEISURE 
The promise of ever-greater efficiency and technology was that we would all have more and more time to pursue non-work related activities. As automation and, later, digital technologies helped make our jobs easier and faster, we could use all the time we saved and spend it on pursuing the good life. But that's not how it's worked out. Technology did create efficiencies, but the time that opened up seems to have become crammed with even more work. But maybe there's a way to think about the good life in this moment. How do we reshape and reconfigure our relationship to the time we have and open it up so we can pursue the things we value? *This episode originally aired on February 20, 2020.

Friday, August 8

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. *This episode originally aired on April 2, 2024.

This week on IDEAS in the summer, a special series that celebrates 60 years of the CBC Massey Lectures.

Monday, August 11

MASSEY AT 60: PAYAM AKHAVAN 
In 2017, renowned Canadian human rights lawyer Payam Akhavan delivered the Massey Lectures — In Search of a Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey. The lectures recount how some of his most formative experiences — his family's flight from Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, his work for UN Tribunals prosecuting those responsible for ethnic cleansing in Bosnia in the early 1990s and for the Rwandan genocide of 1994 — galvanized his commitment to pursuing justice for the victims of human rights abuses. As part of the Massey at 60 series, marking six decades of the Massey Lectures, Akhavan reflects upon how the themes explored in his lectures have taken on even more relevance in the divided, conflict-ridden world of today. *This episode originally aired on June 26, 2024. 

Tuesday, August 12

MASSEY AT 60: MIGLENA TODOROA ON DORIS LESSING
Doris Lessing addressed Canadian audiences with her CBC Massey Lectures in 1985, using the opportunity to warn us against groupthink and what she called the intellectual "prisons we choose to live inside". Now, a response from the present day: Miglena Todorova reflects on Lessing's message and puts it into the context of today's politics, as well as Todorova's own upbringing in socialist Bulgaria. This conversation between Todorova and the words of Doris Lessing took place in front of a live audience at Massey College in Toronto, as part of the institution's 60th anniversary celebrations. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 7, 2024. 

Wednesday, August 13

MASSEY AT 60: JANE FREEMAN ON URSULA FRANKLIN
Technology is much more than a tool; it's a system, according to physicist and peace activist Ursula Franklin argued — one so powerful that it can shape our mindset, our society and our politics. Her observations were prescient when she delivered her Massey Lecture in 1989 and they are all the more relevant today. Ursula Franklin's friend and collaborator University of Toronto Professor Jane Freeman reflects on the power of Franklin's message. *This episode originally aired on Oct. 3, 2024. 

Thursday, August 14

MASSEY AT 60: JENNIFER WELSH
As part of the 60th Anniversary of Massey College's founding, IDEAS is revisiting various Massey Lectures. This time, it's 2016 Lecturer Jennifer Welsh. Born in Regina, educated at Oxford, she has worked in the field of International Relations and Political Science across Europe and in Canada, most recently at McGill University in Montreal. Her Lectures were called The Return of History — a wake up call to those of us who may have felt a little too optimistic about the future after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Executive Producer Greg Kelly interviewed Jennifer Welsh before an audience at Massey College, about wealth, authoritarianism, and what it was like to see the wall come down back in 1989. *This episode originally aired on May 9, 2024. 

Friday, August 15

MASSEY AT 60: TANYA TALAGA
In 2018, award-winning journalist Tanya Talaga, presented the CBC Massey Lectures series, entitled All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward in which she explored the legacy of cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples. For Talaga, that cultural genocide has led to a forced disconnection from land and language by Indigenous peoples. In her lecture series she focused on the present-day need for Indigenous self-determination in social, cultural and political arenas. As part of an ongoing series of interviews marking the 60th anniversary of Massey College, a partner in the Massey Lectures, Tanya Talaga sits down with IDEAS producer Naheed Mustafa to reflect back on her lectures and how the stories of Indigenous peoples offer lessons for Canada today. *This episode originally aired on March 6, 2024.

This week on IDEAS in the summer, we feature Ian William's 2024 Massey Lectures, What I Mean to Say: Remaking Conversation in our Time. They originally aired in November from the 18th to the 22nd.

Monday, August 18 

LECTURE #1: WHY WE NEED TO HAVE A CONVERSATION ABOUT CONVERSATIONS
Civic and civil discourse have deteriorated, and the air is raw with anger and misunderstanding on all sides. Part of the reason is the online space; another part is that we're closer now than ever before to people who are very different from us. So we need to find ways to change the game — because conversation isn't going away. 

Tuesday, November 19

 LECTURE #2: PUBLIC CONVERSATIONS
"A stranger is a character. A stranger is almost a person. It's as if their humanity is activated only once we interact with them," Ian Williams says in his 2024 CBC Massey Lectures. How do we open ourselves up to connection with strangers — while still safeguarding our personal sovereignty and resisting efforts to convert us? And what can we learn from our conversations with strangers and loved ones alike about how to navigate the murky waters of national conversations? 

Wednesday, November 20 

LECTURE #3: PERSONAL CONVERSATIONS
Bookstores are full of titles that are supposed to help us deal with difficult conversations — about emotions, hurts, misunderstandings. The problem is that difficult conversations are almost always about something other than what they seem to be about. And what we're actually looking for in a conversation isn't always answers — it's communion.

Thursday, November 21 

LECTURE #4: WHO CAN SPEAK FOR WHOM TO WHOM ABOUT WHAT?
Children's first words tell us that they are listening and learning, figuring out the shape of the world. They're also learning who can speak for whom to whom about what. We're in an era where many people feel an ownership over certain words, and how a community expresses itself; the term 'appropriation' has come to create guardrails around what can be said, and by whom. Ian Williams considers the role of speech and silence in reallocating power, and what it means to truly listen.

Friday, November 22

LECTURE #5: GOOD CONVERSATIONS
What makes a good conversation? And do good conversations have anything in common? The 2024 CBC Massey speaker Ian Williams studies his daily conversations, and explores how our age has left many of us in what he calls a "drought of loving voices." In searching for conversations that feel transcendent, not transactional, he argues that in great conversations, the content is less important than the interaction: the sincerity and openness of the engagement. Good conversation is an art, and you don't know how it will change you by the time it ends. 
 

Monday, August 25

IDEAS FOR A BETTER CANADA:  WHY CAN'T WE BE FRIENDS?
In a politically polarized world, conversation across divides can go one of three ways: screaming from our silos, retreating into them, or patiently building bridges between them to allow for  civil debate. From fostering deep empathy to role-playing games to re-defining community, we explore how to nurture healthier democracies by encouraging conversation. IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed hears from Edmontonians about how they make it work. *This episode originally aired on April 21, 2025.

Tuesday, August 26

IDEAS FOR A BETTER CANADA: DO I COUNT?
Housing affordability is reaching a crisis point across Canada. The affordability crisis brings debate to local communities, stokes conflict, between generations, and contributes to a crisis of homelessness. Nahlah Ayed visits Nanaimo, British Columbia to ask: What does it mean for society when owning or renting your own home is out of reach for so many? How do you build a community when it's so hard to find a home near work, schools, and social lives? What obligations does a society have to ensure safe and stable housing is accessible to everyone? *This episode originally aired on April 22, 2025.

Wednesday, August 27

IDEAS FOR A BETTER CANADA: WHERE CONFEDERATION BEGAN, AND WHERE DEMOCRACY COULD GO  
In an ideal democracy, every citizen has a voice. Critics of Canada's first-past-the-post electoral system have long decried what they say is unfair representation in our halls of power. And for that and other reasons, voters are increasingly disengaged. As residents of Confederation's birthplace, Prince Edward Islanders have thought hard about the democratic exercise, engaging its citizens, and what can be done to reinvigorate our democracy. Nahlah Ayed hears from Prince Edward Islanders about how to get the most out of our electoral system. *This episode originally aired on April 23, 2025.

Thursday, August 28

IDEAS FOR A BETTER CANADA: YOUR LIBRARY IS OPEN (AND BELIEVES IN DEMOCRACY)
Libraries are a target in the culture wars raging across the continent. Yet they exist to give everyone access to a wide variety of expressive content: even when those books, events, and materials may offend others. As upholders of the sometimes unpopular concept of intellectual freedom, can inclusive yet open library guidelines help remind us what it is that democracy upholds? Nahlah Ayed visits Burlington Public Library in Ontario, to speak with local librarians, author Ira Wells (On Book Banning), and a community audience, about what can be learned from our libraries. *This episode originally aired on April 24, 2025. 

Friday, August 29

TBD