IDEAS schedule for January 2025

* Please note this schedule is subject to change.

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, as part of our series, The Greatest Numbers of All Time.

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, as part of our series, The Greatest Numbers of All Time.

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, as part of our series, The Greatest Numbers of All Time.
 

Monday, January 6

WADE IN THE FOREST: WADE DAVIS
Anthropologist Wade Davis has smoked toad, tried ayahuasca, and figured out the actual zombie cocktail in Haiti. He's spent a lifetime travelling the world and writing books about the wonders of our planet, how we need to take care of all things both great and small, and what we have to learn from our many cultures. Wade Davis goes for a walk in the woods with IDEAS producer Philip Coulter to talk about the ideas in his latest book of essays.

Tuesday, January 7

CHARLES TAYLOR'S COSMIC CONNECTIONS
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.

Wednesday, January 8

ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL: CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE AND JOHN MCWHORTER
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and John McWhorter are two very different African American writers who share common concerns about language, race, politics, and culture in a polarized society. Adichie, an award-winning and bestselling Nigerian-American novelist, laments a chill in civic discourse when people don't feel free to fully express themselves and accurately describe their world for fear of political censure. McWhorter, a linguist at Columbia University and columnist for the New York Times, meanwhile, critiques the culture of wokeness as being both condescending and harmful to Black people. Adichie and McWhorter spoke at the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival. 

Thursday, January 9 

BBC REITH LECTURES 1: IS VIOLENCE NORMAL?
In this year's BBC Reith Lectures, forensic psychotherapist Gwen Adshead examines violence and its effects on victims, perpetrators, and society. In four talks, one from within Grendon Prison in the UK, she answers questions such as: Is violence normal? What is the relationship between trauma and violence? Is there such a thing as evil? Can we change violent minds? In her first lecture, she explores whether violence is innate to humanity, or is an aberration, and what causes some people to act on their urges to cause harm.

Friday, January 10

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.
 

Monday, January 13

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.

Tuesday, January 14

A "MINOR" REVOLUTION: ADAM BENFORADO
Are kids these days really snowflakes? Writer and law professor Adam Benforado thinks otherwise. In fact, he argues that children's rights have stalled over the last century — at a cost we're all paying for. His solution? An overhaul society that puts children first — or in his words, a "minor" revolution. 
 

Wednesday, January 15

TBD

Thursday, January 16 

BBC REITH LECTURES 2: IS THERE SUCH A THING AS EVIL?
In the second of this year's BBC Reith Lectures, Forensic psychiatrist Gwen Adshead asks: is there such a thing as evil?In her four-part examination of violence in society, Adshead argues that evil is not a property of a few individuals, but something that dwells within us all. What keeps it at bay, she says, is cultivating a personal capacity for goodness. But how do we cultivate goodness when social and political movements elevate anger, conflict, and animosity?

Friday, January 17

WHO OWNS SPACE? 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 Aarron Boley asks how we can be better stewards of outer space.
 

Monday, January 20

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. 

Tuesday, January 21 

TBD

Wednesday, January 22

TBD

Thursday, January 23

BBC REITH LECTURES 3: DOES TRAUMA CAUSE VIOLENCE?
Forensic psychiatrist Gwen Adshead delivers the third BBC Reith Lecture inside Grendon Prison, a unique facility where prisoners engage in group therapy to address the root causes of their criminal behaviour. In this talk, Adshead addresses the relationship between trauma and violence, and where one bleeds into the other. She asks: does being a victim of violence increase the likelihood of being a perpetrator? Her talk features a Q&A with inmates of Grendon Prison, who are in the midst of reckoning with their own acts of violence.

Friday, January 24

BBC REITH LECTURES 4: CAN WE CHANGE VIOLENT MINDS?
The final BBC Reith Lecture from forensic psychiatrist Gwen Adshead comes from Bergen, Norway, a country with a long history of successful rehabilitation of violent criminals. In her talk, Adshead examines the effectiveness of therapy for perpetrators of violence, and the challenges with the public's acceptance of therapeutic models for violent criminals.
 

Monday, January 27

LOVING YOUR COUNTRY IN THE 21st CENTURY, STEP TWO — WANTING IT TO WIN
A "transnationalist" who abhors patriotism but loves America. An anti-Zionist argument from someone whose family owes its survival to taking refuge in Israel. An all-francophone scholarly department, operating inside an anglophone university in Montréal, issuing ripostes to Québec nationalist messaging. An exiled Afghan liberal attempting to rebuild a free press in his home country from afar. They all help IDEAS producer Tom Howell advance his documentary/essay series on where a patriotic spirit belongs in people's lives today. 

Tuesday, January 28

TBD

Wednesday, January 29

TBD

Thursday, January 30

INUIT APPROACHES TO CONVERSATION 
In 2024, the CBC Massey Lectures went to Iqaluit for the first time, and novelist and poet Ian Williams spoke about the lost art of conversation. After his lecture, lawyer, artist and activist Aaju Peter and actor, podcaster and producer Simeonie Kisa-Knicklebein joined Williams on stage to expand the discussion — and talk about Inuit and other northern approaches to conversation and conflict resolution. This episode also features music performed during the evening by Inuit throat singers Celina Kalluk and Kathleen Ivaluarjuk Merritt. 

Friday, January 31

THE PASSION OF ÉMILE NELLIGAN, CANADA'S SADDEST POET
Broken violins, distraught pianos, the way birdsong reminds him of how all his joy is no more, cruel angels, ships that once carried gold but now lie wrecked and empty and chewed-up by seawater, absent fathers, mothers who aren't as pretty as when they were younger, abandoned churches, ruined chapels, Montreal when there's too much snow, the thought—striking a young man while drunk on red wine — that a fleeting glimpse of happiness is mere worthless illusion in a world that stubbornly misunderstands and fails to appreciate him. During three years at the end of the 19th century, Émile Nelligan wrote hundreds of tragic, passionate, and formally perfect sonnets and rondels on these subjects and more. This brief blooming would render him Quebec's most famous poet. His story lent itself to an opera, a ballet, a movie, and many books. There are prizes, libraries, schools, hotels, and online magazines now bearing Nelligan's name. And yet, most English-speaking Canadians seem never to have heard of him. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 9, 2024.