IDEAS schedule for July 2025

* Please note this schedule is subject to change.

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

The theme for this week: Canadian art.  

Tuesday, July 1  

(The IDEAS' broadcast is preempted for Canada Day programming. This episode below will be available as a podcast, on our website and on the CBC Listen App.)

THE IDEA OF CANADA: NATIONALISM WITHOUT EXTREMISM
This was the year that the U.S. President hit a longstanding nerve in Canada: that it should swallow up Canada, and annex it as the 51st state. The widespread outrage indicates that some form of Canadian nationalism is very much alive — and that there's an idea of Canada that is deeply felt, if not exactly articulated. So we thought it would be appropriate to bring back an award-winning piece from 1992, called The Idea of Canada. It was composed by Christos Hatzis with producer Steve Wadhams, and audio engineers Laurence Stevenson and Rod Crocker. Meech Lake and Oka had occurred. The 1995 referendum was looming. It was also the 60th anniversary of Glenn Gould's birth — and so the eight compositions that make up the piece were inspired by Gould's own documentary, Idea of North. Composer Christos Hatzis joins host Nahlah Ayed in conversation about the origins, meaning and enduring relevance of "The Idea of Canada". As Hatzis tells her: "It's only Canada that made me a world citizen. I don't think I would have had that consciousness anywhere else... Canada allows you to be patriotic and not to be nationalist."

Wednesday, July 2

TOM THOMSON — 100 YEARS FROM NOW (PART ONE)
Tom Thomson's paintings are among the most famous and beloved artworks in Canada. Thomson himself is one of the most mythologized Canadians of his time — and ours. Now, over 100 years after his mysterious death on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park, when he was at the peak of his powers, IDEAS producer Sean Foley asks one central question: does the mortal and material fascination with Tom Thomson leave us with something enduring — something to carry us through the next century, and beyond? *This episode originally aired on Nov 9, 2018.

Thursday, July 3

WHAT TOM THOMSON SAW, AND WHAT HE MAY HAVE MISSED (PART TWO)
IDEAS producer Sean Foley explores the landscapes of Algonquin Park which inspired Tom Thomson's work — while also examining Indigenous artists' perspectives of the same landscapes that Thomson and the Group of Seven may have missed. *This is the second episode in a two-part exploration of the Canadian painter. It originally aired on Dec.18, 2018.

Friday, July 4

THE NEW MASTERS: THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SOBEY ART AWARD 
A conversation with the finalists and winner of the 2022 Sobey Art Award. Their acclaimed art ranges from an exploration of what it means to be a Maroon; to reimagining the iconic and controversial Hudson Bay Blanket; to influences of the Egyptian sun god's regeneneration from death to rebirth; to the compelling power of tombstones when representing exclusion and finally the meaning behind turning the iconic Taj Mahal into a bouncy castle. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 9, 2023.
 

This week, IDEAS features the panel discussions we recorded live at the Stratford Festival about the evolution and future of human rights.

Monday, July 7

BRAVE NEW WORLDS: THE RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND SECURITY  
Enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to "life, liberty, and security of the person" is one of the most important - but most contested - rights we have. Nahlah Ayed speaks with Leilani Farha, Cindy Ewing and Azeezah Kanji about reimagining and reinforcing the right to security of the person to tackle everything from homelessness to state violence in wartime. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 2, 2024. 

Tuesday, July 8

BRAVE NEW WORLDS: THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY
Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation." It's a right with profound implications for our lives in the 21st century, from digital surveillance to sexuality and autonomy. Nahlah Ayed speaks with Ron Deibert, Lex Gill and Michael Lynk at the Stratford Festival. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 3, 2024.

Wednesday, July 9

BRAVE NEW WORLDS: THE RIGHT TO LEAVE, RETURN AND SEEK ASYLUM
According to the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." We also have a right to seek "asylum from persecution" in other countries. At a time when more people are forcibly displaced than at any other point in recorded history, Nahlah Ayed speaks with Rema Jamous Imseis, Jamie Chai Yun Liew and Petran Molnar about where the rights to leave, return and seek refuge came from, and what they could mean today. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 4, 2024.

Thursday, July 10

BRAVE NEW WORLDS: THE RIGHT TO FREE THOUGHT AND FREE EXPRESSION
The right to freedom of thought, as well as the freedom to express those thoughts, is especially resonant in our own time. In his novel 1984, Orwell proposed a future of "thought-crime" and in many places that day has arrived. Nahlah Ayed speaks with Noura Aljizawi, Kagiso Lesego Molope, and James Turk about the history and future of free expression. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 5, 2024.

Friday, July 11

BRAVE NEW WORLDS: RIGHTS FOR THE FUTURE
If the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were rewritten today, what rights would we add to strive for a more just world? In the final panel, Nahlah Ayed, Lindsay Borrows, Ketty Nivyabandi and Astra Taylor look beyond our fractured present and try to imagine what new rights we need for our own millennium. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 6, 2024. 

All this week IDEAS features philosophers whose insights still have resonance for us today.  

Monday, July 14

NIETZCHE AND THE ART OF 'PASSING BY'
Philosopher Friedrick Nietzsche is most popularly known for his declaration that 'God is dead' and for his wrestling with nihilism. But political theorist Shalini Satkunanandan argues that Nietzsche offers us a method that can help us navigate the highly polarizing discourse that's afflicting democracies today. "Where one can no longer love, one should pass by," wrote Nietzsche. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 20, 2025.

Tuesday, July 15 

IS HUMAN INTELLIGENCE OVERRATED?
Our brains tell us human intelligence is unique in understanding this complicated world — that our intellects make us superior to all other animals. It allows us to imagine and build remarkable technologies. Write poetry and ponder the stars. But all that brain power has also allowed us to carry out unspeakable atrocities and could lead to our extinction. That realization has led one Canadian scientist to conclude human intelligence is the worst thing to have ever happened to the Earth. *This episode originally aired on June 22, 2023. 

Wednesday, July 16

NASTY, BRUTISH… AND ANXIOUS — WHAT THOMAS HOBBES WOULD TELL DEMOCRACIES NOW  
English philosopher Thomas Hobbes might be best known for his belief that in the state of nature, without a powerful sovereign force to rein people in, life is 'nasty, brutish and short.' Amid high anxiety regarding the health of democracy in Europe and North America, McGill University PhD student Vertika (who goes by the one name only) calls for a better understanding of what Hobbes believed about that very emotion: anxiety.  She argues that his writing on the topic provides lessons for worried politicos today. Ideas visits a political theory conference in Virginia, in the wake of the American election, to learn more. *This episode is part of our ongoing series, Ideas from the Trenches. It originally aired on Jan. 13, 2025.

Thursday, July 17

BEWARE OF BITTER ORANGES: IBN KHALDUN  
The modern history of economic theory often traces back to the Scottish economist and philosopher, Adam Smith, who is also known as "The Father of Economics." But 400 years before Adam Smith, an Andalusian philosopher, economist, and historian was putting forward economic theories that, today, are taken for granted. If Adam Smith is the father then, perhaps, Ibn Khaldun is his great-grandfather many times over. He is described as the founder of historiography, economics, and sociology. Ibn Khaldun broke with Islamic methodological tradition and formulated a new way to think about the study of sociology that kept the study of human society independent from an understanding of divine intervention and focussed instead on uncovering the mechanisms that lead to social transformation. His most famous book is the Muqaddimah which offers an early example of universal history and is often referred to as an early understanding of social Darwinism. *This episode originally aired on June 24, 2021.  

Friday, July 18

WOULD THE REAL MARTIN LUTHER PLEASE STAND UP  
Five hundred years ago, when Martin Luther translated the New Testament so that ordinary Germans could understand it, he sparked a theological, social and political revolution that we're still living in. But who exactly was he? A life-risking fighter for freedom of conscience? Many still see him that way. But when peasants revolted against the princes they were suffering under, he sided with the princes. And his infamous antisemitism was embraced by the Nazis. So who exactly was Martin Luther? *This episode originally aired on April 14, 2022.
 

This week, IDEAS showcases some of the top minds in Canada whose legacies and ideas inspire generations.  

Monday, July 21

ETHICIST ARTHUR SCHAFER
When philosophy professor Arthur Schafer began teaching at the University of Manitoba's faculty of medicine in 1972, it became the only English-speaking institution in Canada to offer a course on secular ethics to medical students. At a time when courses in bioethics didn't exist, that was a breakthrough. Yet there was much skepticism then about Schafer's unusual role there. Schafer went on to a career that spanned half a century, and placed him at the heart of some of Canada's biggest ethical debates, from medical assistance in dying (MAiD), to the rights of prisoners to vote. In this wide-ranging conversation with IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed, Arthur Schafer looks back, and forward, in considering the field of applied ethics. He discusses the role of philosophers in addressing the increasingly complex ethical dilemmas confronting individuals, and society as a whole. *This episode originally aired on May 16, 2024.

Tuesday, July 22

ALANIS OBOMSAWIN: THE ART OF LISTENING 
At the age of 91, prolific Abenaki artist and filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin is not slowing down. For nearly 70 years, her storytelling and documentary work has served as a mirror for Canada, vividly capturing and reflecting Indigenous experiences, providing a space for all Canadians to witness perspectives that have otherwise been suppressed and ignored. Obomsawin talks about her life's influences and the quiet power of listening in her 2023 Beatty lecture at McGill University. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 7, 2023.

Wednesday, July 23

DAVID SUZUKI HAS SOMETHING TO SAY
David Suzuki hosted The Nature of Things on CBC television for 44 years, and now he's retired. Along the way he taught all of us how to think about the planet we call home, about the mysteries of nature and the dangers that face us when we fail to take care of our world. He taught us about joy and curiosity, and above all, about the moral responsibility that comes with being alive. "The future doesn't exist. The only thing that exists is now and our memory of what happened in the past. But because we invented the idea of a future, we're the only animal that realized we can affect the future by what we do today." *This episode originally aired on June 8, 2023.

Thursday, July 24

MITIARJUK NAPPAALUK: WHAT WE DO WITH WORDS 
When Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk wrote Sanaaq, the first novel written in Inuktitut in Canada, that was just the beginning. Over the course of her extraordinary life, she wrote more than 20 books, many of them aimed at young Inuit readers. Her work contains both rich philosophical insights and practical instructions for how to survive in the north. She was also a teacher, an artist, a thinker with profound ideas about justice and community, and a passionate defender of Inuktitut. In the third episode of a special series on change and survival in Nunavik, IDEAS speaks with Qiallak Nappaaluk, Mitiarjuk's daughter and the mayor of her home community Kangirsujuaq; Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk, the president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada; and Nelly Duvicq, a teacher in Nunavik. *This episode originally aired on June 28, 2023.

Friday, July 25

THIS WAY TO RE-ENCHANTMENT, WITH CHARLES TAYLOR
Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor speaks to Nahlah Ayed about his life's journey, from growing up in Montreal in the 1930s, entering politics in the 1960s, developing the ideas for his 1991 CBC Massey Lectures, and more recently, turning towards Romantic poetry as a means to thinking through the most fundamental questions of what makes human beings tick. It's in works such as Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey poem, Taylor argues, that we can best trace the course of a human ambition that's always been at the heart of who we are: a yearning for ineffable connection to a cosmos. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 7, 2025.  
 

Our theme this week highlights some of our favourite public lectures, featuring some bracing cross-currents of contemporary thinking.

Monday, July 28 
 
HEALING AND THE HEALER: DR. JILLIAN HORTON
Creative nonfiction is "the art of fact." The Edna Staebler Award is the only award in Canada that celebrates literary nonfiction. The most recent recipient is Dr. Jillian Horton for her book, We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing. In it, Dr. Horton weaves together her personal story of burnout and the place for compassion with a broader understanding of the anxiety and exhaustion that stalks healthcare workers as well as those on the receiving end. She brings the story of her own family's experience with medical ineptitude and her drive to reassess herself and her profession with the ultimate goal of developing a more balanced and humane understanding of what it means to heal and be healed. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 18, 2024.

Tuesday, July 29

AN OUTSIDER, INSIDE THE TRADES: HILARY PEACH
Hilary Peach was interested in experimental poetry. But she also had bills to pay. So she trained to become a welder, and spent 20 years as a member of the boilermakers union, travelling all across North America for jobs. And Peach — now a B.C. boiler inspector — never stopped writing. Her latest book is a memoir, called Thick Skin: Field Notes from a Sister in the Brotherhood, and was awarded the 2023 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction from Laurier University. Hilary Peach gave a public talk at the awards ceremony, artfully describing her working experiences, and exploring the historical and cultural reasons why the trades have become so associated with men despite interest from so-called outsiders. *This episode originally aired May 1, 2024.

Wednesday, July 30

UNIVERSITIES THINKING OUT LOUD TOGETHER: RANDY BOYAGODA
After the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, encampments popped up across university campuses, followed by intense scrutiny and several resignations of several presidents at prominent universities. Underlying the controversies was a simple question that has no simple answer: what is a university for? That question has been around for centuries, and it's come back, full force. Writer Randy Boyagoda makes the case for universities being a place where we can think out loud together. *This episode originally aired on Oct. 7, 2024.

Thursday, July 31

WHO OWNS OUTERSPACE? ASTRONOMY, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND SOARING PRIVATIZATION
Space exploration is no longer the domain of countries alone. It's now rapidly becoming the domain of private interests. There are now about 30,000 satellites orbiting the Earth — half of which are owned by Elon Musk.  These satellites are being built for rapid development and obsolescence, meaning what goes up, must come down. Add to that orbital light pollution. UBC Astronomer Aaron Boley asks how we can be better stewards of outer space. *This episode originally on Jan. 21, 2025.