IDEAS schedule for December 2024
* Please note this schedule is subject to change.
Monday, December 2
CONNIE WALKER ON THE IMPORTANCE OF STORYTELLING
Time Magazine named Connie Walker one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She's also one of Canada's most decorated journalists, having won a Pulitzer Prize, a Peabody and a Columbia-Dupont Prize for her podcast series, Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's. Yet as she tells host Nahlah Ayed onstage at a public event organized by the Samara Centre for Democracy, she'd always been reluctant to feature stories about her family in her journalism. She realized, however, that the stories of her family surviving residential schools embodies the defining reality for virtually all Indigenous peoples in Canada.
Tuesday, December 3
WHERE DO WE BELONG : A CONVERSATION WITH THE WRITER M.G VASSANJI
The celebrated writer M.G. Vassanji argues that there's a more fundamental and even slipperier endeavour than establishing one's identity, and that's how — if ever — can we establish a sense of belonging? For many, he says, our true home is nowhere.
Wednesday, December 4
CANADA'S SCHOOL TRAINS
They were known as School Cars and Schools on Wheels. Trains that chugged and chuffed along the railroads and brought schooling to children living in the isolated communities of Northern Ontario. It was a novel six-month experiment that lasted forty years, from 1926 to 1967. In this documentary, Alisa Siegel explores an early project in remote education, homeschooling, and nation-building. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 9, 2023.
Thursday, December 5
THE THEATRE OF NEWS: LESSONS FROM ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND
Theatrical plays in Elizabethan England fed the growth of modern news culture, argues Stephen Wittek in his post-doctoral work. He argues that the cross pollination between theatre and news developed the norms for our contemporary public conversations. This updated episode of Ideas from the Trenches originally broadcast in 2014.
Friday, December 6
FATE IS THE HUNTER
This episode is a deep dive into Fate Is the Hunter, Ernest K. Gann's celebrated memoir of flying and the capricious hand of fortune. The book is a nail-biting account of the early days of aviation. It's also a meditation on the mysteries and indifference of luck. Gann was a commercial pilot from 1938 to 1952. He loved piloting aircraft, but time after time, flying nearly cost him his life. Gann wonders: why did I survive when so many other pilots perished? What does it mean? *This episode originally aired on Nov. 28, 2022
Monday, December 9
NON-ALIGNED NEWS, PART ONE
In 1973 members of the Non-Aligned Movement - countries that chose not to ally themselves with the United States or the Soviet Union during the Cold War — gathered in Algeria and came up with a bold vision: a pool of news agencies that could tell a different story about the world. The Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool was an ambitious experiment in creating a new kind of journalism and decolonizing the flow of information — a project with utopian promise, internal tensions and fierce opponents in the West. IDEAS producer Pauline Holdsworth speaks with journalists involved in the movement for a New World Information and Communication Order, and scholars studying this history and its afterlives today.
Tuesday, December 10
THE FUTURE OF NON-WESTERN MEDIA, PART TWO
In part two of our series about the 1970s journalistic experiment known as the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool, IDEAS turns to conversations with journalists who continue to grapple with the challenges that were first highlighted more than five decades ago at the summit in Algeria. Their concerns and critiques about representation and fairness at the heart of those conversations persist in newsrooms today. In this episode, a group of journalists connect the ideas and values first formalized 50 years ago to the challenges that arise today including the importance of representation, the accusation of bias, and the meaning of fairness.
Wednesday, December 11
PAYAM AKAVAN: ECO ARGUMENT ON BEHALF OF BANGLADESH
Renowned Iranian-Canadian human rights lawyer Payam Akhavan is in The Hague this month, making legal arguments before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on behalf of Bangladesh and small island states — two of the geopolitical entities most endangered by climate change. Coming at the end of a year full of extreme weather and on track to be the hottest year on record, the hearings seek to establish the legal obligations of states to mitigate climate change and the damage done by it — and the legal consequences for states which don't fulfil those obligations.
Thursday, December 12
SHAPING TOMORROW'S CITIES: STRATFORD PANEL
Given the span of human history, the city is a relatively recent invention, about 6,000 years old. By 2050, about 70 per cent of the world's populations will be living in cities. Yet climate crisis and rising sea levels, along with wildfires, mass migrations and geopolitical volatility bracket the viability of the city as we know it. So what does the city of the future look like? Host Nahlah Ayed speaks with three experts on the future of the city at a Provocation Ideas event in Stratford, Ontario: Placemaker, Jay Pitter; neuroscientist, Robin Mazumder; and futurist, Greg Lindsay.
Friday, December 13
HAWKEYE'S ARMY: MEDICINE AND WAR
We think nothing today of calling healthcare workers "front-line workers," engaged in a "battle" against disease…. And COVID has gone a long way in further entrenching the war metaphor in medicine. But the roots of the infiltration of such language go a long way back, aided by pop culture icons like the TV show MASH. Dr. Jillian Horton, a writer and doctor of internal medicine is a veteran of the battle against covid, and the battle to rid medicine of the macho, masochistic culture that begins to define its soldiers from medical school onward. She imagines something less heroic, and healthier for all involved. Hawkeye Pierce, the star doctor of MASH, inspires her exploration, which begins with an interview with the man who played him on television: Alan Alda. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 21, 2023.
Monday, December 16
THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME: IDEAS AT CROW'S THEATRE
Our homes are repositories of our memories — and they hold our hopes for the future. But today, our homes have become something else: commodities. Leilani Farha, the global director of The Shift and the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, considers what happens when the humanity is stripped out of housing — and what it means for us to collectively 'return home.' Her talk is the second installment in the 2024-2025 season of IDEAS at Crow's, recorded at Crow's Theatre in Toronto.
Tuesday, December 17
THE 2024 KILLIAM PRIZE HONOURS CANADIAN UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS, PART TWO
Each year, a cohort of scholars with research careers of "sustained excellence" are honoured with the Killam Prize — seen by some as Canada's version of the Nobel. This is the second episode featuring Nahlah Ayed talking to the 2024 laureates. Engineering winner Clement Gosselin has developed an innovative robotic arm. Natural Sciences laureate Sylvain Moineau is making breakthroughs using basic science research. Medical Sciences winner Gerard Wright fights the growing global threat posed by antibiotic resistance.
Wednesday, December 18
ANDEAN PHILOSOPHY: THE HUAROCHIRI MANUSCRIPT
The Huarochirí Manuscript is one of the few surviving records of Indigenous Andean philosophy and Quechua worldviews in the early modern era. Compiled in the late 16th century, it was once used by the Catholic Church to identify "idolatries." But today, the manuscript is an important tool for recovering and reconstructing metaphysical concepts the Catholic Church tried to eradicate. Jorge Sanchez-Perez, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Alberta, speaks with Nahlah Ayed about what the manuscript reveals about Andean metaphysics, including ideas about animal-human relations and the nature of time. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 6, 2023.
Thursday, December 19
SYRIAN POET FARAJ BAYRAKDAR ON THE FREEDOM WITHIN
For 14 years, Syrian poet Faraj Bayrakdar was imprisoned and tortured in a series of prisons that have become synonymous with the brutality of the Assad regime. He found refuge in composing poetry: lines he memorized until he could write them down years later, using tea as ink, a piece of wood for a pen, and cigarette paper. The poems he wrote imagining the fall of the regime are now finally coming true. He speaks with Nahlah Ayed about disobedience, hope, and how the freedom within is greater than any prison.
Friday, December 20
FIFTH ESTATE: THE NEXT 50 YEARS OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
The CBC's flagship investigative TV program, The Fifth Estate, turned 50 this year. To commemorate this golden anniversary, a panel of distinguished journalists take us behind the stories and to the current threats facing their profession. As the media landscape continues to shrink, who will hold the powerful to account?
Monday, December 23
APOCALYPSE FOR CHRISTMAS: THOMAS MERTON AND THE INN
Thomas Merton is perhaps best known for his memoir The Seven Story Mountain, an account of his conversion to Catholicism, his turn away from a secular literary life and his entrance into a Trappist monastery in Kentucky. He helped to bring contemplative spirituality to the fore during the convulsions of the 20th century and committed himself at the end of his life to interfaith understanding. He also developed a powerful prophetic voice. In his 1966 essay, The Time of The End is the Time of No Room, he spins us a Christmas story that we don't often hear, but one that is central to the feast and to our modern self-understanding.
Tuesday, December 24
CHRISTMAS PHILOSOPHY 101
Heat the cocoa, stoke the fire, and settle in for some good ol' fashioned philosophy! Christmas is a minefield of deep philosophical quandaries — is it ethical to lie to children? Who does a gift really benefit: the giver, or receiver? How do we really know Santa exists, or doesn't? Christmastime is full of moments that reveal deep questions, so join IDEAS on a jocular journey through the philosophy of Christmas.*This episode originally aired on December 23, 2020.
Wednesday, December 25
PREEMPTED
Thursday, December 26
ORDINARY MAGIC: THE MUSICAL GENIUS OF JERRY GRANELLI
A profile of the legendary jazz drummer and composer Jerry Granelli, who was recorded by producer Mary Lynk on the eve of his turning 80. Over his career, he accompanied many of the greats: Mose Allison, Sly Stone and The Grateful Dead. He opened for Lenny Bruce and taught alongside Allen Ginsberg. And most famously, he was a member of the Vince Guaraldi Trio that recorded the iconic album: A Charlie Brown Christmas. Jerry Granelli died in Halifax on July 20, 2021. *This episode originally aired on December 21, 2020.
Friday, December 27
FIRESIDE & ICICLES — POEMS FOR WINTER
Facing a cold winter, IDEAS producer Tom Howell seeks not to escape misery so much as exploit it, with the goal of achieving a certain delicious mix of loneliness, nostalgia, yearning, and elevated moaning known to Welsh poets as hiraeth. Howell digs through a pile of poetic works from ancient to new in search of the perfect works to evoke hiraeth in their own way. He enlists the help of poets as well as IDEAS's online community. *This episode originally aired on December 17, 2020.
Monday, December 30
NUMBERS: 0
The number zero is essential to modern mathematics. But for thousands of years, humanity lived without it — and even resisted it. According to Aristotle the concept of zero was antithetical to the very existence of God. Medieval Christians attempted to ban its use. Even modern mathematicians continue to be confounded by zero, a number that simply refuses to play by the rules. It's been called a "dangerous idea," the Loki of the number line. And yet it's one of the greatest inventions in human history. In the first installation of our special series on numbers, we explore the remarkable power of a number that represents nothing at all, and the dangers hidden in its void. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 26, 2023.
Tuesday, December 31
NEW YEAR'S LEVEE
The final day of the year is a time of reflection and a time to look forward. Host Nahlah Ayed invites IDEAS producers into the studio to share an eclectic range of projects and ideas they are working on for 2025. You'll hear about income inequality, Nietzsche, the power of itch, the intrigue of the yellow traffic light and a fascinating story of Henry Box Brown — an enslaved man from Virginia who mailed himself to freedom.
Wednesday, January 1
NUMBERS: 3
If you say the name "Bloody Mary" three times in front of a mirror, she'll get you. If you want to heal your goiter in 17th century Scotland, repeat a charm three times. To access the power of the spirit world, call on three-faced Hekate, goddess of magic and spaces in-between. Incantations of three are common in the mystical, magical, supernatural, and the occult. As our number series continues, we enter the powerful and spiritual realm of three. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 27, 2023.
Thursday, January 2
NUMBERS: 5
The mathematical achievement of counting the digits on one hand usually introduces a young human to the concept of 'five'. This experience endows the number with an amiable quality, later to be confirmed by the ease with which it can be multiplied thanks to our Base 10 system. However, poor 5 becomes increasingly odd upon deeper contemplation. Its unique position as the first 'safe prime', its awkward relations with 12 and 20, and its sad entanglement in science's great "replication crisis" will push curious and foolhardy minds past the safe zone and into more treacherous areas of number theory. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 28, 2023.
Friday, January 3
NUMBERS: 9
In Norse mythology there exists a huge ash tree, and underneath its roots are nine worlds. In fact, the number nine appears often, in culture and folklore, making unlikely and uncanny connections. Carl Jung calls it synchronicity. There are the nine emotions of Indian aesthetics, nine heavenly bodies that define life, the curse of Beethoven's ninth symphony, The Beatles Revolution 9, and the striker in soccer: always wearing number nine. Why does a cat have nine lives and not eight, or seven? Why do we dress to the nines, why is it good to go the whole nine yards? *This episode originally aired on Sept. 29, 2023.
