IDEAS is a place for people who like to think. If you value deep conversation and unexpected reveals, this show is for you. From the roots and rise of authoritarianism to near-death experiences to the history of toilets, no topic is off-limits. Hosted by Nahlah Ayed, we’re home to immersive documentaries and fascinating interviews with some of the most consequential thinkers of our time.
With an award-winning team, our podcast has proud roots in its 60-year history with CBC Radio, exploring the IDEAS that make us who we are.
New episodes drop Monday through Friday at 3pm ET.
Dogs are lauded as 'man's best friend.' But PhD student Molly Labenski argues that, in America, the real picture is of a dysfunctional, toxic 'friendship' between the human and canine species. She points to a revealing source of cultural attitudes — the use of fictional dogs by authors of 20th-century literature. *This episode originally aired on April 5, 2022.
In her book, We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing , Dr. Jillian Horton shares her personal story of burnout and calls for developing a compassionate medical system, with a more balanced and humane understanding of what it means to heal and be healed. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 18, 2024.
Salman Rushdie sees reality through the lens of time. There are the months after the nearly-fatal attack of August 2022 that he details in his memoir Knife . And the decade following the Iranian state’s February 1989 fatwa against him. In this conversation with Nahlah Ayed, he describes hinge moments in his uncannily storied life. *This episode originally aired on April 30, 2024.
Our series exploring five years in the 20th century that shaped the world ends with the year 1989. The Berlin Wall comes tumbling down. There are democratic uprisings in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary. A riot in Tiananmen Square in Beijing is met with a fierce crackdown. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 26, 2024.
For millennia, rats have been portrayed as violent and disgusting. But rats have aided in our self-understanding. IDEAS contributor Moira Donovan investigates the contributions rats have made to humanity and whether co-existing with rats means coming to understand their role in our ecosystem. *This episode originally aired on October 27, 2020.
Despite their admirable qualities, rats have long been reviled as disgusting and aggressive animals. IDEAS contributor Moira Donovan explores how rats have come to occupy a position as cultural villain — and how they’ve shaped human history along the way. *This episode originally aired on October 26, 2020.
For Timothy Garton Ash, Europe is an idea — and an ideal — worth celebrating and preserving, even against all the forces acting against it right now. The historian, who won the 2024 Lionel Gelber Prize, is using his prize money to buy drones for Ukraine in the war against Russia. *This episode originally aired on May 15, 2024.
Lois Wilson has lived many lives during her 96 years as a United Church Minister, a Senator, a human rights advocate, and an inspiration to many. She exhibits a humility that can only be described as steadfast. For the Sake of the Common Good: Essays in Honour of Lois Wilson is a tribute to the life and work of a remarkable Canadian. *This episode originally aired Feb. 15, 2024.
In Astra Taylor's final Massey Lecture, she offers hope and solutions. Taylor suggests cultivating an ethic of insecurity — one that embraces our existential insecurity. The experience of insecurity, she says, can offer us a path to wisdom that can guide our personal lives and collective endeavours.
In part four of our series exploring five years that shaped the world, IDEAS examines 1973. Augusto Pinochet comes to power in Chile, and dictators rule Portugal, Greece, Uganda and beyond. The OPEC oil embargo sets the world on a new path. The American Supreme Court legalizes abortion in Roe v. Wade, 50 years before it would be overturned. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 25, 2024.
Scientists agree that dogs evolved from wolves and were the first domesticated animals. But exactly how that happened is hotly contested. IDEAS contributor Neil Sandell examines the theories and the evolution of the relationship between dogs and humans. *This episode originally aired on March 1, 2021.
Feeling the weight of a world? A lecture on hope might be a much needed balm. Scholar Shannon Murray shares lesson in hope, patience, empathy and 'freudenfreude,' and how Shakespeare’s words have become the narrative soundtrack of her life. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 13, 2023.
Living in modern society is hard and so people often turn to the "mystical marketplace" where Westerners consume Eastern traditions to find some kind of healing balm for the ailments of modernity. *This episode won a Wilbur Award for broadcast excellence on spiritual issues and themes. It originally aired on Jan. 27, 2021.
The burning of fossil fuels causes the past, present and future to collide in destructive ways. In her fourth Massey Lecture, Astra Taylor tells us that as the climate alters, evolved biological clocks erratically speed up or slow down, causing plants and animals to fall out of sync. In a world this out of joint, how could we possibly feel secure? But there is a path forward.
Our series, looking at pivotal years in recent history, continues as we focus on the year 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads a march on Washington, the Pan-African movement ushers in a new era for Africa, President Kennedy is assassinated, and the war in Vietnam heats up. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 24, 2024.
English may have a reputation for being a "linguistic imperialist," pushing local languages into obscurity but linguist Mario Saraceni argues English should be viewed as a global language with multiple versions existing on equal footing. *This episode originally aired on May 19, 2023.
Négritude was a Francophone movement to rethink what it meant to be Black and African. Scholar Merve Fejzula explores the dynamic debates happening in the early-to mid-20th century among Négritude thinkers, how they disseminated their ideas, and how all this changed what it meant to be part of a public. *This episode originally aired on March 8, 2023.
A cotton sack from the time of slavery bears the first names of a mother and her daughter, who was sold at the age of nine. Harvard historian Tiya Miles scours the historical documentary record to discover who these women were and reveals their story of love in her book, All That She Carried — winner of the 2022 Cundill History Prize. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 20, 2023.
It’s a paradox — we live in the most prosperous era in human history, but it’s also an era of profound insecurity. Massey Lecturer Astra Taylor suggests that history shows that increased material security helps people be more open-minded, tolerant, and curious. But rising insecurity does the reverse — it drives us apart.
On the eve of the Second World War, Hitler annexes Austria and escalates antisemitic persecution, Japan wages war on China, and the parallel collapse of democracy in both the East and West sets the stage for war. This is the second episode in our series exploring five years that have shaped the world. It originally aired on Jan. 23, 2024.
Tested is a new podcast series from CBC and NPR that asks the question, who gets to compete? Since the beginning of women’s sports, there has been a struggle over who qualifies for the women’s category. Tested follows the unfolding story of elite female runners who have been told they can no longer race as women, because of their biology. As the Olympics approach, they face hard choices: take drugs to lower their natural testosterone levels, give up their sport entirely, or fight. To under...
How should we fill our time, and what is most important to remember? Giller Prize-winning novelist and poet Ian Williams looks at the meaning of life, work and the relationship between the past and future, inspired by the Crow's Theatre's production of Anton Chekhov's classic drama, Uncle Vanya . *This episode originally aired on March 11, 2024.
For nearly five years, Turkey imprisoned one of its most significant writers. Fifty-one Nobel laureates called for his release. Now free, the resilient Ahmet Altan reflects on the meaning of freedom, inside and out.
Celebrated Turkish writer Ahmet Altan spent almost five years in jail. He wrote his memoir which was smuggled out on bits of paper. This episode aired while he was still in prison. It won an Amnesty International Canada Media Award for outstanding human rights reporting. Tomorrow IDEAS features a conversation with CBC producer Mary Lynk and the now-freed Ahmet Altan.
In Astra Taylor's second Massey Lecture, she argues our social order runs on insecurity. But we’re also guaranteed the right to “security of the person.” The wealthy barons of the past and present have defined what security means for themselves — but the rest of us, ordinary commoners, have fought for something else instead.
After the First World War, the Western powers create new borders and carve out spheres of influence, leaders from the Global South fight for self-determination, and the League of Nations and the Communist International are formed. In this series, IDEAS explores five years in the 20th century that have shaped our world today. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 22, 2024.
Arthur Schafer taught ethics to medical students in 1972. His 50-year career put the philosopher at the heart of major ethical debates like MAID. Schafer 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.
Christina Sharpe's award-winning book, Ordinary Notes , explores the complexity of Black life — blending memoir, history, cultural and political critique. She argues that the experience of Black people is misunderstood — but can be contested, and healed, by Black creativity, and community.
Insecurity has become a "defining feature of our time," says CBC Massey lecturer Astra Taylor. The Winnipeg-born writer and filmmaker explores how rising inequality, declining mental health, the climate crisis, and the threat of authoritarianism originate from a social order built on insecurity. In her first lecture, she explores the existential insecurity we can’t escape — and the manufactured insecurity imposed on us from above.
For award-winning poet and bestselling author Ross Gay, joy and delight aren’t frivolous or a privilege. He argues they’re absolutely essential to a meaningful life — especially in the face of grief, sadness and suffering.
