Kim Hill chairs panel discussion about the measurement of climate change with Prof. Donna Strickland, Dr Thomas Baer and Prof. David Hutchinson. Listen to Kim Hill chairing a panel discussion with Nobel Laureate Prof. Donna Strickland, Dr Thomas Baer, and Prof. David Hutchinson. If electronics was the new technology of the last hundred years, it is being replaced in this century by photonics, according to three experts talking to Kim Hill: Donna Strickland, Thomas Baer, and David Hutchinson. In ...
Oct 29, 2020•52 min•Ep. 28
An Election 2020 debate on the arts, with MPs from National, Labour and the Greens exploring their policy differences and similiarities. Miriama Kamo is in the chair. Listen to Miriama Kamo explore arts policies for the election with Chloe Swarbrick, Jonathan Young and Carmel Sepuloni. Recorded on 24 September, this panel organised by Auckland's arts regional trust Te Taumata Toi-a-Iwi brings together representatives from Labour, National and the Greens to discuss their parties' arts policies. T...
Oct 08, 2020•52 min•Ep. 27
Nations United explores the significance of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. In the midst of a pandemic radically transforming our world, it sets out what must be done. Listen to a group of international celebrities exploring the challenge of the climate crisis, human rights and gender equality. Read the transcript of the documentary Julia Roberts: This is a very important story. The important story. I'm Julia Roberts and in the midst of COVID-19, we have an historic opportunity to look a...
Sep 25, 2020•33 min•Ep. 26
Writer John Bluck shares a very personal perspective on how moviegoing in New Zealand reflects our character, history and preoccupations. Writer John Bluck shares a very personal perspective on how moviegoing in New Zealand reflects our character, history and preoccupations. John Bluck traces a lifetime in the development of local cinema A Tikiti to the Pikitea Episode 1: The Dream Factory What did everyone do to find their fantasy before films came along, only just a hundred years or so ago? An...
Aug 20, 2020•49 min•Ep. 25
John Bluck explores the past, future, and current state of lawnmowing in a light-hearted but informative talk in six closely-cropped chapters. Listen to John Bluck's exploration of the past, present experience and ambiguous future of lawnmowing Chapter 1. An ordinary thing It is the most ordinary thing anyone can do, next to washing dishes and taking out the rubbish. And much more fun. And it's the easiest thing to do. Any Kiwi can. No qualifications required. And not much skill. It doesn't earn...
Aug 04, 2020•39 min•Ep. 24
The University of Auckland's Assoc. Prof. Siouxsie Wiles explains how glowing superbugs help in the development of new medicines to fight infection. From Raising the Bar 2020. Listen to Assoc. Prof Siouxsie Wiles on how glowing superbugs can help develop new medicines to fight infection, in the 2020 at-home version of Raising the Bar. Bioluminescence (which literally means 'living light') allows glow worms to lure food, fireflies to find a mate, and nocturnal squid to camouflage themselves from ...
Jul 27, 2020•52 min•Ep. 23
An informal talk from Prof. Darl Kolb about the experience of working from home, recorded during 2020's online version of the University of Auckland's Raising the Bar series. Listen to Darl Kolb how the experience of working from home can be reshaped by the language we use to describe it, in the 2020 at-home version of Raising the Bar. The Covid-19 lockdown that New Zealand went through was a profound experience for us all. Roads emptied of their usual traffic. The country closed down, and every...
Jul 27, 2020•47 min•Ep. 22
Meng Foon talks with author Chris McDowall, and contributors Nadine Anne Hura and Veronika Meduna about an Atlas of Aotearoa in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival Writers' programme. Listen to Chris McDowall, Nadine Anne Hura and Veronika Meduna talking to Meng Foon about the Atlas of Aotearoa in this highlight in this highlight from the 2020 NZ Festival of the Arts writers' programme We Are Here - An Atlas of Aotearoa is the extraordinary product of years of work that offers an i...
Jul 12, 2020•32 min•Ep. 21
12 months after the Christchurch terror attacks, Guled Mire chairs an NZ Festival discussion with Alison Whittaker and Nyadol Nyuon from Australia, and Anahera Gildea and Jack McDonald from Aotearoa. Listen to Guled Mire, Alison Whittaker, Nyadol Nyuon, Anahera Gildea and Jack McDonald in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme This panel discussion, recorded on the eve of the first anniversary of the Christchurch Terror Attacks, explores racism in Australasia from i...
Jul 05, 2020•46 min•Ep. 20
Cardiac surgeon Samer Nashef talks with Carl Shuker about risk, mistakes and how heart surgery has changed in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme. Cardiac surgeon Samer Nashef talks with writer Carl Shuker about risk, mistakes and how heart surgery has changed in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme. Listen here Cardiac surgeon Samer Nashef is author of The Naked Surgeon and The Angina Monologues - memoirs that describe life inside...
May 19, 2020•52 min•Ep. 19
Kristen Ghodsee and Marilyn Waring talk to Kathryn Ryan about the fight for valuing women's economic contribution to society - at the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme. American ethnographer Kristen Ghodsee and activist-writer Marilyn Waring talk to Kathryn Ryan about the fight for valuing women's economic contribution to society. Recorded at the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme. Listen to the conversation here From the discussion: Kathryn Ryan: We see governments beginnin...
May 05, 2020•50 min•Ep. 18
Serhii Plokhy argues that the catastrophe at Chernobyl was a nuclear disaster waiting to happen. He talks to Toby Manhire. Listen to Serhii Plokhy talk with Toby Manhire in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Arts Festival writers' programme Serhii Plokhy's award-winning account of the nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl is, according to the New York Review of Books, "a masterful account of how the USSR's bureaucratic dysfunction, censorship, and impossible economic targets produced the disast...
Apr 27, 2020•52 min•Ep. 17
Bart van Es discusses The Cut Out Girl, his remarkable true story of how a Jewish girl in the Netherlands was hidden by his family from the Nazis during World War II. Listen to Bart van Es talk with Miri Young-Moir in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Festival writers' programme The Cut Out Girl is a harrowing true story about a young girl's struggle to survive Nazi persecution, and a man's attempt to unveil his family's secrets about her connection to them. Bart van Es's award-winning bo...
Apr 20, 2020•52 min•Ep. 16
Jokha Alharthi, the Omani author of Celestial Bodies, talks about her literary world and what winning the Man Booker International prize has meant for Arabic literature and for herself. Listen to Jokha Alharti talk with Kiran Dass in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Arts Festival writers' programme 2019 Booker International prize winner Jokha Alharthi is the first Omani woman ever to have had her work translated into English. Celestial Bodies offers deep insight into Oman's history throu...
Apr 17, 2020•47 min•Ep. 15
Two very different books celebrate the importance of scent and sensory experience in coming to terms with loss. The authors Laurence Fearnley and Long Litt Woon talk with Jessie Bray-Sharpin. Listen to Laurence Fearnley and Long Litt Woon talk with Jessie Bray-Sharpin in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Arts Festival writers' programme Sensory awareness links the work of two authors speaking at the New Zealand Arts Festival in March 2020. In the memoir of Malaysian writer Long Litt Woon ...
Apr 14, 2020•52 min•Ep. 14
Kim Hill speaks with Dr Kristen Ghodsee about her book Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism in this highlight from the 2020 New Zealand Arts Festival writers' programme. Is Capitalism bad for women? Dr Kristen Ghodsee asserted as such in a NY Times opinion piece that went viral and led to her book Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence. Drawing upon decades of research, Ghodsee argues that capitalism suppresses women, who are happier and hea...
Apr 07, 2020•52 min•Ep. 13
Kinley Salmon, the New Zealand economist and author of Jobs, Robots & Us, talks about the future of work in a time of rapidly-developing automation. A 2020 New Zealand Arts Festival highlight. Listen to Kinley Salmon, author of Jobs, Robots & Us, discussing the future of work in Aotearoa in a time of rapidly-developing artificial intelligence. Recorded at the 2020 NZ Arts Festival in Wellington. Kinley Salmon, author of Jobs, Robots & Us, presents a view into the future of work in Ao...
Apr 07, 2020•50 min•Ep. 12
At the NZ Arts Festival 2020, Rebecca Priestley talks about Antarctica with the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor Juliet Gerrard. Listen to Rebecca Priestley discussing her book Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica with the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor Juliet Gerrard. Recorded at the 2020 NZ Arts Festival in Wellington. Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica tells a personal story of time spent on Earth's most mysterious and precious frontier. The book is a poignant and relatable remi...
Mar 13, 2020•47 min•Ep. 11
At the NZ Arts Festival 2020, RNZ's Lynn Freeman talks to Rajorshi Chakraborti about his novel Shakti, a fantastical story which has insights into the real-life world of India today. Listen to Rajorshi Chakraborti talking about fiction and reality with Lynn Freeman What can the power of women achieve in a world run by men? Rajorshi Chakraborti's just-released novel, Shakti, is a fast-paced story of standing up for what is right in a world going very wrong. Mind-reading, wish-granting goddesses, ...
Mar 11, 2020•51 min•Ep. 10
Thomas Sainsbury talks with Louisa Wall MP, Prof. Welby Ings, Professor Emeritus Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, and award winning artist and filmmaker Tanu Gago. Comedian Tom Sainsbury chairs a discussion explores LGBTQ+ life in New Zealand at Pride Festival Aotearoa. It features four panellists with decades of involvement in the gay scene as creators, advocates and agents of change: Louisa Wall MP, Prof. Welby Ings, Professor Emeritus Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, and award-winning artist and filmmaker Tanu Gag...
Feb 24, 2020•51 min•Ep. 9
The current and future uses of robots in health care and education is discussed by Dr Craig Sutherland from the University of Auckland during the 2019 Raising the Bar night. Listen to Dr Craig Sutherland discussing the use for robots are in health and education. From stealing our jobs to overthrowing humankind, robots get a hard time in the media. But what does a future with robots really look like? Spoiler alert: It's not quite like Arnold Schwarzenegger wielding a gun as The Terminator, or the...
Feb 18, 2020•25 min•Ep. 8
The history and current trends in economics, and Bhutan's alternative to GNP, is discussed by Dr Ross McDonald from the University of Auckland during the 2019 Raising the Bar night. Listen to Dr Ross McDonald discussing how the 18th-century economic theorist Adam Smith is misrepresented, and why one kind of happiness is better than another Is money or happiness more important? For the fourth King of Bhutan the answer was clear. In 1972 he declared that his country would pursue a goal of maximisi...
Feb 18, 2020•27 min•Ep. 7
The interrelationship between the history of propaganda and our world of digital surveillance is discussed by Dr Ethan Plaut from the University of Auckland during the 2019 Raising the Bar night. Listen to Dr Ethan Plaut discussing the intertwined history of propaganda and digital surveillance. Whether you're handling your digital business or just scrolling for the lulz, every moment you're online could be commodified twice over: while advertisers and propagandists purchase shards of your attent...
Feb 14, 2020•26 min•Ep. 6
The pros and cons of legalising cannabis is explored by Professor Benedikt Fischer from the University of Auckland during the 2019 Raising the Bar night. Listen to Prof. Benedikt Fischer on the societal and health issues associated with the legalisation of cannabis. Nothing divides a room quite like one of the country's burning issues of the moment: cannabis legalisation and its pros and cons. What are the short and long term health effects of cannabis use? How would we best reduce cannabis-rela...
Feb 14, 2020•26 min•Ep. 5
Corruption at government level and within society is discussed by Assoc. Prof. Tim Kuhner from the University of Auckland during the 2019 Raising the Bar night. Listen to Assoc. Prof. Tim Kuhner on how corruption has intensified inequality around the world Donald Trump has made corruption in the United States more famous than ever. But American democracy was downright rotten before Trump, says Tim Kuhner, and this talk explains why that is - and why New Zealanders should care. It turns out that,...
Feb 03, 2020•25 min•Ep. 4
The increasingly Pacific nature of New Zealand society is explored by Assoc. Prof. Damon Salesa from the University of Auckland during the 2019 Raising the Bar night. Listen to Assoc. Prof Damon Salesa on how NZ is becoming more Pacific by the hour "Pacific people and communities have become an outstanding source of innovation and leadership in New Zealand. They have charted a new future for our country in ways most New Zealanders have yet to appreciate. As New Zealand rapidly becomes more Pacif...
Feb 03, 2020•26 min•Ep. 3
Beauty treatments for women during the Renaissance are discussed by Dr Erin Griffey from the University of Auckland during the 2019 Raising the Bar night. Listen to Dr Erin Griffey on the beauty treatments and regimes undertaken by women in the Renaissance Looking flawless hundreds of years ago was no easy feat but, for royal women of Tudor and Stuart England, beauty was of extreme significance. Beauty was closely associated with purity, goodness and even chastity. In a bid to uphold a righteous...
Jan 28, 2020•25 min•Ep. 2
The role of gut bugs in health is explored by Dr Wayne Cutfield from the University of Auckland during the 2019 Raising the Bar night. The role of gut bugs in health is explored by Dr Wayne Cutfield at the 2019 Raising the Bar night. Listen to Dr Wayne Cutfield on recent discoveries about the importance of gut bugs to our health Who made the call to eat a second scone at the coffee shop? You or your gut bugs? These tiny but influential bacteria that live in our bodies are called gut microbiome -...
Jan 28, 2020•26 min•Ep. 1
