IDEAS schedule for February 2024
* Please note this schedule is subject to change.
Thursday, February 1
POWER, POLITICS AND PLATFORMS
A growing body of research suggests that social media is harmful to society, with many experts arguing that platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are contributing to political polarization, eroding our democratic institutions, and harming the mental health of younger people. But it's becoming increasingly difficult to conduct research into social media giants. Some have found themselves pushed out of jobs, or dragged in front of Congress. Nahlah Ayed speaks with three such scholars — Joan Donovan, Michael Wagner, and Renee DiResta — at the inaugural Attention! conference in Montreal.
Friday, February 2
THE ART OF EVERYDAY LIVING
In Joyce's great novel Ulysses, the half-Jewish Leopold Bloom meets up with the young student Stephen Dedalus, and over the 24 hours of the novel, he teaches Stephen a few things about how to be in the world: how to live with contradictions, how to deal with jealousy and anxiety, how to be a man and an adult. Irish scholar and writer Declan Kiberd argues that Joyce's novel also offers all of us a model for living well.
Monday, February 5
PURO CUBANO: THE MEANING OF TOBACCO IN CUBA
Cuban cigar makers say that over 200 pairs of hands touch each cigar, from seed to ornate box. Pedro Mendes travels though Cuba, tracing that journey, to understand what tobacco means to the country. He visits a tobacco farm to learn about the impacts that climate change and an economic crisis are having on the livelihood of farmers. He meets with cigar rollers and tobacco historians to discover the cultural and religious role of the leaf. He tours one of Havana's biggest cigar factories to witness the final stages in creating this iconic product. Cigars are a symbol of Cuba, and a Cuban way of life and resistance, under severe threat.
Tuesday, February 6
BE REASONABLE! (CANADIAN INTELLECTUALS DEFINE WHO IS AND WHO IS NOT)
We want our neighbours to put up with reasonable amounts of noise, and expect them not to make unreasonable noise. We empower judges to decide how a reasonable person would act, and to determine the line dividing reasonableness from unreasonableness. We demand that governments be reasonable when they make and enforce laws. From the interpersonal to the societal: what is reasonableness? In a democracy, how reasonable can we reasonably demand that others be? Hear thinkers Rinaldo Walcott, Lynne Viola, George Elliot Clarke, Miglena Todorova, and Anakana Schofield wrestle with the answers as they fill out our Reasonableness Questionnaire.
Wednesday, February 7
QUEER DIPLOMACY: NEGOTIATING 2SLGBTQ+ RIGHTS IN A FRAUGHT WORLD
Hilary Clinton ushered in a new age of diplomacy in 2011, when she addressed the UN Human Rights Council, declaring that gay rights are human rights. But in the decades since, global progress on the rights of sexual minorities have been profoundly uneven. Nahlah Ayed speaks to Canadian diplomat Douglas Janoff about the delicate world of international queer diplomacy and what's at stake in an era of backlash.
Thursday, February 8
HANDS UP WHO LOVES TIMMINS
This small northern city built around an open-pit goldmine offers a treasure that would-be immigrants need much more than gold: a fast track to Canadian permanent residency. The only condition? You must agree to move to Timmins. Ideas producer Tom Howell finds out what "the city with a heart of gold" has to offer a newcomer, and who's ready to fall in love with Shania Twain's hometown. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 11, 2023.
Friday, February 9
MOLLY WORTHEN: THE DARK SIDE OF CHARISMA
Charisma — that uncanny ability to captivate people and connect with voters — has always been a huge asset in politics. But writer and scholar Molly Worthen argues that a new kind of charismatic leader has become a dangerous and powerful force in politics. In this 2023 Larkin-Stuart Lecture, Worthen finds the roots of today's breed of charismatic leader in history's anti-establishment religious movements: guru figures who present themselves as revealing hidden truths and having the power to transform lives, transfixing their followers into unquestioning fealty. *This episode originally aired on October 3, 2023.
Monday, February 12
SUBVERTING IDENTITY
Identity is our rock, the very foundation of who we are, and how we present ourselves to the world. But identity is also a slippery, malleable thing, unpredictably shaped by forces internal and external. Writers often map the grey zones of identity, and the 2023 winners of Governor General's Literary Awards are no exception. Hear fiction, essays, poetry, and thinking on the theme of subverting identity in this annual IDEAS collaboration with CBC Books and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Tuesday, February 13
SEDUCED BY STORY: THE DANGERS OF NARRATIVE
Comparative literature professor Peter Brooks of Yale University has spent most of his distinguished career studying and celebrating the power and art of narrative. But now, he says, things have gone too far. Stories have overtaken and drowned out all other ways of knowing in the real world. The results can be catastrophic and dystopic: people being taken in by corporate and political storytelling, being led astray by disinformation and believing conspiracy theories. The best way to fight the storification of everything, he argues, is the study of literary narrative — so we'll all know how to read stories as stories. *This episode originally aired on March 7, 2023.
Wednesday, February 14
JUSTICE WITHOUT DEMONIZING YOUR ENEMIES: HARVARD LEGAL SCHOLAR MARTHA MINOW
When facing injustice, it is rare and difficult for people not to demonize their enemies. But it is possible, argues a former dean of Harvard Law School. In the 2023 Horace E. Read Memorial Lecture, Martha Minow gives a fascinating and thoughtful talk on what justice should mean in an increasingly polarized world.
Thursday, February 15
FOR THE SAKE OF THE COMMON GOOD: AN APPRECIATION OF LOIS WILSON
Lois Wilson has lived many lives during her 96 years: a young United Church Minister visiting summer communities in her native Manitoba; a community organizer in Thunder Bay; the first female Moderator of the United Church of Canada, a President of the World Council of Churches, a human rights advocate who visited South Africa, South Korea, Chile, and Argentina — all in one year; an independent member of the Senate of Canada who found common cause with both left and right. Along the way, she's been an inspiration to many — all the while, exhibiting a humility that can only be described as steadfast.
Friday, February 16
JOHN LORINC: HOW SMART ARE SMART CITIES?
Nothing seems to make a city politician's eyes light up like the promise of the smart city — cityscapes filled with sensors, continually collecting and analyzing data from the movement and habits of its citizens, and using that data to make cities more efficient, safer and environmentally sustainable and to improve quality of life. In his latest book, Dream States: Smart Cities, Technology and the Pursuit of Urban Utopias — the winner of the 2022 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy — John Lorinc questions whether these technologies live up to the hype and whether they ultimately serve the interests of city dwellers or big tech companies. And he makes the case that what cities need to pay more attention to is the unsexy infrastructure, such as sewers, that actually makes them work. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 19, 2023.
Monday, February 19
WHAT THE BIRDS SAW
The face we give to our monsters says much about our anxieties as a culture. But…birds? Two classic works of 20th century horror featured a violent avian army. This documentary looks at why a Daphne du Maurier short story, and the Alfred Hitchcock thriller inspired by it, imagined The Birds as humanity's mortal enemy. Seeded with fears of technological overreach and environmental disaster, and terror at the rise of the violent irrational, our 21st century anxieties were anticipated. Gothic expert Catherine Wynne, historian Scott Poole, and literary scholar Lynn Kozak speak with IDEAS producer Lisa Godfrey. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 6, 2023.
Tuesday, February 20
FROM PAGE TO STAGE
How do you take a play off the written page, and onto a theatre stage? A good one generates many different potential interpretations: directors, actors and scholars will all have different points of view, and no one is ever entirely right or wrong. The meaning of a play is a never-ending creative discussion, particularly when it comes to Shakespeare. From the Stratford Festival, a pair of actors, a couple of scholars, and one director toss the ball around on three Shakespeare plays, particularly exploring the theme of sex and gender, and how Shakespeare's people talk to each other about these delicate issues.
Wednesday, February 21
MARRIAGE AND THE MODERN WOMAN
There's been an ocean of spilt ink over why heterosexual marriage no longer works — and especially why it no longer works for women. Fewer Canadians than ever before are bothering to get married. But when they do, women are the ones more likely to initiate divorce and tend to wait longer before re-entering a marriage or common law union. So — and just in time for Valentine's Day — IDEAS asks if marriage works for the modern woman. Once the romance wears off and the work of running a household takes over, and the realities of daily living are revealed in glaring sunlight, do women think it's worth it? And does marriage have to fundamentally change for women to continue saying "I do."
Thursday, February 22
SINGING IN DARK TIMES | IDEAS AT CROW'S THEATRE
Art often holds up a mirror to the world, showing us the horror and beauty humans are capable of. But sometimes art also refuses to accept the present world, and insists on imagining something better. McGill professor and world literature scholar Sandeep Banerjee explores the witnessing and utopian functions of art in dark times, by turning to ancient texts, ghost stories from the Bengal Famine, and the literature of witness and refusal from our own dangerous present. Recorded in January 2023, this talk kicks off a new public lecture series recorded in Toronto, called IDEAS at Crow's Theatre.
Friday, February 23
HOW TO FIX A BROKEN WORLD
The world is full of problems. We talk about them all the time. It seems like there's always someone complaining 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 Sept. 21, 2023.
Monday, February 26
HEALING THE LAND, PART ONE
In 2021, a deadly heat dome produced a devastating wildfire season across British Columbia. While immediate media coverage often focuses on evacuations and the numbers of homes destroyed, First Nations communities say what these fires do to the land in their territories — and the cultural and philosophical lives of their communities — is often overlooked. IDEAS visited St'át'imc territory near Lillooet, B.C. to learn how 21st-century wildfires are reshaping the landscape — and their consequences for plants, animals, and humans alike. This two-part series follows the work of the St'át'imc Nation, land guardians, and scientists from the Indigenous Ecology Lab at UBC as they seek to document the effects of wildfires and chart a new future based on Indigenous approaches to healing and balancing an ecosystem.
Tuesday, February 27
HEALING THE LAND, PART TWO
In 2021, a deadly heat dome produced a devastating wildfire season across British Columbia. While immediate media coverage often focuses on evacuations and the numbers of homes destroyed, First Nations communities say what these fires do to the land in their territories — and the cultural and philosophical lives of their communities — is often overlooked. IDEAS visited St'át'imc territory near Lillooet, B.C. to learn how 21st-century wildfires are reshaping the landscape — and their consequences for plants, animals, and humans alike. This two-part series follows the work of the St'át'imc Nation, land guardians, and scientists from the Indigenous Ecology Lab at UBC as they seek to document the effects of wildfires and chart a new future based on Indigenous approaches to healing and balancing an ecosystem.
Wednesday, February 28
A LIFE-GIVING CHORD
Mahalia Jackson. Shirley Caesar. Thomas A. Dorsey. Just a few of the titans of Black gospel music, which began to flourish and to gain recognition beyond churches in the 1920s and 30s. At the heart of the music is faith, freedom, and joy. Black gospel music — which from its very beginnings has been steeped in the idea of community — is now, finally, making its way into university study. Documentary producer Alisa Siegel takes us into a revolutionary University of Toronto class where Black gospel is helping to transform the way that students learn, create, and perform music.
Thursday, February 29
AUTHOR CHRISTINA SHARPE ON ORDINARY NOTES: BLACKNESS IN CANADA
Christina Sharpe is Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities at York University in Toronto. Her award-winning latest book, Ordinary Notes, is an extraordinary blend of memoir, history, cultural and political critique, reflections on literary inspirations like Toni Morrison's novel Beloved, and a loving tribute to her mother and grandmother. It documents how the lives of Black people have been shaped, so often brutally, by racism and violent repression over four centuries in North America, and how the lived and felt and experience of Black people is misunderstood — but how that can be contested and healed by the power of Black creativity and community.
