IDEAS schedule for August 2024
* Please note this schedule is subject to change.
Thursday, August 1
ENTRE CHIEN ET LOUP: HOW DOGS BEGAN
Scientists agree that dogs evolved from wolves and were the first domesticated animals. But exactly how that happened is contested. Many scientists think that self-domestication is the most plausible explanation — that some wolves found an advantage by hanging around the settlements of our prehistoric ancestors, and eating their garbage. Over time, they evolved into the first dogs. But when that might have happened remains elusive. 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.
Friday, August 2
THE YEAR 1973: THE DICTATORS
Augusto Pinochet comes to power in Chile, and dictators also rule Portugal, Greece, Uganda and beyond. The OPEC oil embargo sets the world on a new path. In the U.S., Richard Nixon insists he's not a crook, and the Supreme Court legalizes abortion in Roe v. Wade. Nahlah Ayed speaks with Luis van Isschot, Akila Radhakrishnan and Randall Hansen at the Stratford Festival. *This episode originally aired on January 25, 2024.
Monday, August 5
# 5: ESCAPING THE BURROW | ASTRA TAYLOR'S 2023 MASSEY LECTURES
Human beings will never be totally secure, especially not on a planet that has been destabilized. In the fifth of her Massey Lectures, Astra Taylor offers hope and solutions. We need to cultivate an ethic of insecurity — one that acknowledges and embraces our existential insecurity, while resisting manufactured forms of insecurity imposed upon us. The experience of insecurity, she says, can offer us a path to wisdom — a wisdom that can guide not only our personal lives but also our collective endeavours. *Astra Taylor's Massey Lectures originally aired in November 2023.
Tuesday, August 6
LOIS WILSON: FOR THE SAKE OF THE COMMON GOOD
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. She was also 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, while exhibiting a humility that can only be described as steadfast. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 15, 2024.
Wednesday, August 7
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: A PERSONAL HISTORY OF EUROPE
Celebrated historian Timothy Garton Ash of Oxford University considers himself to be European. And believes Europe itself is both an idea, and an ideal. One in which a fundament of shared values and assumptions, even identity, arose in a way that makes it historically unique. But that unique identity is fraying in the face of extreme nationalism, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and geopolitical tremors. His book Homelands: A Personal History of Europe recently won the Lionel Gelber Prize, awarded to the world's best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs. He delivered a talk at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, and later spoke with IDEAS host, Nahlah Ayed. *This episode originally aired on May 15, 2024.
Thursday, August 8
RATS: HAUNTING HUMANITY'S FOOTSTEPS, PART ONE
They live on every continent except Antarctica. They live in deserts and megacities. They display empathy, altruism and regret. It's no surprise rats resemble human beings so closely, for the simple reason that they've followed humanity's footsteps throughout the ages, amplifying — and undermining — almost everything we do. In part one of this series on rats, IDEAS contributor Moira Donovan looks at how one of the planet's ultimate survivors came to influence so much of human history, and why a creature that provokes so much disgust and fear is worthy of a second look. *This episode originally aired on October 26, 2020.
Friday, August 9
THE YEAR 1989: UPRISINGS AND DOWNFALLS
The Berlin Wall comes tumbling down, there are democratic uprisings in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary, and a riot in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The National Commission on AIDS launches, and this thing called the 'world wide web' is proposed. Nahlah Ayed speaks with Miglena Todorova, Sanjay Ruparelia and Arne Kislenko at the Stratford Festival. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 26, 2024. It ends our series of discussions about important times in recent history.
Monday, August 12
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SALMAN RUSHDIE
In his sweeping novels, Salman Rushdie plays imaginatively with time and fate, character and history. The author's own life story, however, has often veered dangerously out of his control. A fatwa issued against him in 1989 by Iran's religious ruler sent him underground for a decade. Then, after two and a half decades of restored public life, he was almost killed in a knife attack. IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed talks to Salman Rushdie about his memoir Knife, and the principles of free expression that have fuelled his writing and thinking. *This episode originally aired on April 30, 2024.
Tuesday, August 13
THE TEST OF NOW: THE ARC ENSEMBLE
Kurt Weill. Hans Gál. Arnold Schoenberg. Among the most well-known composers forced to flee the Nazi onslaught. But there were many others — gifted, celebrated composers — who ran for their lives and found safe havens. Most, however, never regained their previous stature and success. Instead, they and their compositions were lost. For the last 20 years, the members of The ARC Ensemble have dedicated themselves to recovering the forgotten works of exiled composers. *This episode originally aired on Dec. 19, 2023.
Wednesday, August 14
HEALING AND THE HEALER
Creative nonfiction is "the art of fact." The Edna Staebler Award is the only award in Canada that celebrates literary nonfiction. Dr. Jillian Horton won this award 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.
Thursday, August 15
OF DOGS AND DERRIDA
Dogs are lauded as 'man's best friend.' But PhD student Molly Labenski argues that in America the real picture is of a lopsided, dysfunctional, and altogether toxic 'friendship' between the human and canine species. To make us see it clearly, Labenski points to a revealing source of cultural attitudes — the use of fictional dogs by authors of 20th-century literature. Drawing on 'animal standpoint theory', Labenski argues that American and Canadian cultures have always failed to understand the dogs' point of view sufficiently, and by extension, our species' ability to create a just world for animals in general depends on doing a much better job. *This episode originally aired on April 5, 2022.
Friday, August 16
KATE BEATON: KREISEL LECTURE
Kate Beaton is a popular cartoonist, admired for her art and insight. Her latest book, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, won CBC's Canada Reads competition, as well as Eisner and Harvey Awards in the U.S. But for all her international acclaim, Kate Beaton and her family have deep roots in hard-working, rural Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia. As she explains in the 2024 Henry Kreisel Memorial Lecture at the University of Alberta, Beaton is attuned to the reductive ways that working-class life in a small place can be represented, and actually treated, by outsiders and visitors. In her talk, Kate Beaton describes the actual reality of life in Cape Breton, and points out what is collectively lost when working-class voices are shut out of opportunities in the worlds of arts, culture, and media. *This episode originally aired on March 26, 2024.
Monday, August 19
HEALING THE LAND, PART 1: AFTER THE FIRE
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 northern St'át'imc Nations, 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. *This episode originally aired on Feb 26, 2024.
Tuesday, August 20
HEALING THE LAND, PART 2: FROM EDEN ECOLOGY TO INDIGENOUS ECOLOGY
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 northern St'át'imc Nations, 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. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 27, 2024.
Wednesday, August 21
POWER, POLITICS, AND PLATFORMS: McGILL SOCIAL MEDIA PANEL
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. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 1, 2024.
Thursday, August 22
FELINE PHILOSOPHY
Socrates famously declared that an unexamined life was not worth living. But what if he was wrong? Philosophy has long provided the tools by which we might navigate our ages-long anxieties about love, death and the meaning of life. Cats, on the other hand, do not burden themselves with the same questions; and in turn, they have no need of philosophy. So what's to be learned from this "unexamined" way of being? Should we aspire to such a state? These are some of the questions that English philosopher John Gray attempts to answer in his book Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life. *This episode originally aired on May 6, 2021.
Friday, August 23
THE PHYSICS OF JAZZ AND A GUIDED TOUR ON DARK MATTER
The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario is a hothouse of scientific curiosity, inquiry, mystery and creativity. The speakers featured in its public lectures celebrate all of the above. Stephon Alexander is a professor of physics at Brown University and a jazz musician. He riffs on the connections between music, science and math in The Jazz of Physics, looking at the parallels between jazz improvisation and quantum physics and cosmology. And Katie Mack is the Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication at Perimeter and the author of The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking). She gave a talk about the latest in theories about dark matter — that mysterious stuff that science has never directly observed, but which apparently accounts for five times as much of the universe's mass than the matter we can see. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 14, 2023.
Monday, August 26
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 on May 1, 2024.
Tuesday, August 27
ARCTIC/AMAZON PT 1: THE MURAL
Two Indigenous artists, one from the Arctic, and one from the Amazon, meet in Toronto for a unique collaboration — a mural that will grace the campus of Toronto Metropolitan University. The result is a melding of the visual knowledge of two apparently disparate communities that have much in common. A sharing of experiences, spiritualities and traditions. And a piece of public art that proclaims the solidarity of Indigenous peoples north of 60 and south of the equator. In this documentary, Inuk artist Niap, from Nunavik, and Shipibo artist Olinda Silvano, from Peru, describe their inspirations, their dreams, and their collaboration. The mural is part of the Arctic / Amazon project, organized by OCAD University, the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, and Toronto Metropolitan University. *This episode originally aired on Oct. 23, 2023.
Wednesday, August 28
THE NATURE OF NONFICTION: ROBERT McFARLANE
Robert Macfarlane says his writing is about the relationship between the landscape and the human heart. He is a modern-day re-interpreter of the sublime — the profound awe, insignificance and terror that the grandeur of the natural world evokes — whether he's writing about following ancient foot trails, traversing perilous mountain glaciers or descending into the mysterious, but wondrous world beneath the Earth's surface. He spoke at a special event at the Royal Ontario Museum, where he accepted the inaugural Weston International Award, presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to recognize excellence in non-fiction. *This episode originally aired on Oct. 25, 2023.
Thursday, August 29
TRANSHUMANCE: AN ANCIENT PRACTICE AT RISK
For thousands of years, each spring and fall, human beings along with their domesticated animals have traveled for days, sometimes weeks, to bring the sheep, goats, cattle, reindeer and other animals to better grazing areas. The ancient practice, known as transhumance, has been dismissed as a "primitive," outdated mode of animal husbandry. Yet the practice holds both secrets to the past — from trade routes to the shape of cities, and promise for the future, as an efficient, sustainable and cruelty-free way of tending the animals that humans have depended on for millennia. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 25, 2022.
Friday, August 30
MARRIAGE AND THE MODERN WOMAN
There's been an ocean of spilled 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. Once the romance wears off, and the work of running a household takes over, do women think it's worth it? Do the realities have to fundamentally change for women to continue saying "I do"? *This episode originally aired on Feb 21, 2024.