IDEAS schedule for March 2023
* Please note this schedule is subject to change.
Wednesday, March 1
BLACK MYTHS ON SCREEN: HOLLYWOOD AND A CENTURY OF RACE, PART THREE
Since its beginnings, Hollywood has portrayed the African American in a variety of ways: as primitive beings in Birth of a Nation, as happy former slaves in Gone With the Wind, as an earnest gentleman in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and as hypersexual heroes during the 1970s "blaxploitation" era. Filmmaker Julie Dash says, "it's like we were props in their movies." In this three-part series, IDEAS explores a century of racial politics in Hollywood. *This episode originally aired on March 19, 2021.
Thursday, March 2
THE REAL ACTOR
Sandra Oh, Frances Macdormand, Riz Ahmed: these performers are not the roles that they play. Still, says author Isaac Butler, we want to see actors fuse with their characters. His new book, The Method: How the 20th Century Learned to Act, traces how an artform based in artifice has become a search for psychological and emotional truth. *This episode originally aired on March 3, 2022.
Friday, March 3
THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Across the history of the 20th century, China has gone from being a large but relatively weak country to a mighty superpower, with an influence and reach far beyond its borders. But it's far from being a democracy. However, at one point early in the century, democracy was its ideal. In conversation with Nahlah Ayed, and in a talk at the Toronto Public Library, University of Toronto professor Joseph Wong explains how China got to where it is today, and explores a theory about how this vast and important country might indeed become a democracy.
Monday, May 6
BIG MEN FEAR ME
George McCullagh is not a household name. Not now. But he used to be, in the 1930s and 40s. In fact, his initials were the basis of today's Globe and Mail newspaper. McCullagh was Canada's first and foremost media mogul, of the same type as Charles Foster Kane, Rupert Murdoch, William Randolph Hearst. He was also deeply involved in politics and wanted Ontario, and ultimately Canada, to become a one-party state run by business elites. Yet he was kind to his employees and a genuine philanthropist. Plagued by what is generally now thought to be a bipolar condition, he emerges from the obscured corners of history in a new book by Canadian writer, Mark Bourrie: Big Men Fear Me.
Tuesday, March 7
THE CULT OF STORY
Stories are fundamental to our lives and our sense of ourselves and the world. Comparative Literature professor Peter Brooks of Yale University has spent most of his distinguished career studying and celebrating the power and art of narrative. But now, he says, things have gone too far. Stories have overtaken and drowned out all other ways of knowing in the real world. The results can be catastrophic and dystopic — people being taken in by corporate and political storytelling, being led astray by disinformation and believing conspiracy theories. The best way to fight the storification of everything, he argues, is the study of literary narrative — so we'll all know how to read stories as stories.
Wednesday, March 8
MERVE FEJZULA
At what age does one become an intellectual? Can you become a genuine member of the public by drawing on newspapers instead of reading them, as West African children did? What was the role of education — and the debate around the "right" education — in developing an understanding of Black intellectual achievement? Scholar Merve Fejzula explores the intellectual history of West African schoolchildren in the 20th century and how they helped to redefine common conceptions about what belonging to a "public" means.
Thursday, March 9
PICTURING THE PAST
To mark the occasion of the Academy Awards, Picturing the Past examines the historical film, the most awarded genre for Best Picture, by probing the extraordinary influence of depictions of the past on the ways we remember our shared history — or whether it's even shared. University of Windsor film scholar, Kim Nelson, speaks to experts in history, film studies, and cognitive science to explore the captivating power of historical films to shape our sense of reality, human behaviour, what happened, and why.
Friday, March 10
IDEAS FROM THE TRENCHES: 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.
Monday March 13
2022 MASSEY LECTURES | TOMSON HIGHWAY
Indigenous mythologies, says Tomson Highway, provide unique, timeless solutions to our modern problems. Within the endless circle of life, the Earth is a garden of joy unlimited. And the reason for existence is to have a blast, to laugh ourselves silly. At the centre of that idea in Indigenous mythology is the figure of the Trickster: zany, ridiculous, yet wise. A bit of a Trickster himself, Tomson Highway leads us on an exhilarating exploration of five themes at the centre of the human condition in his Massey Lectures: language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death.
LECTURE # 1 | ON LANGUAGE
In the first lecture, On Language, Tomson Highway argues that language shapes the way we see the world. "Like bird song, languages make our planet a beautiful place, a fascinating place — indeed, a miraculous place — to live on," he writes. Without language, we are lost creatures in a meaningless existence — which is why we tell stories. Language helps us create different mythologies, ways of understanding who we are and why we're here.
Tuesday, March 14
LECTURE # 2 | ON CREATION
In the second of the 2022 CBC Massey Lectures, Tomson Highway asks: "How did the place we know as the universe come into being? What kind of god or angel or combination thereof was responsible for its creation?" For the ancient Greeks, the world was created through sex, and humans were not here to suffer, but to enjoy. Christianity offered something more linear: a beginning, middle and end of things. Tomson Highway suggests that the Indigenous worldview offers something else; he says: "Those who lived in ages before us — our mothers, our grandmothers, our great-great grandmothers, our children who have died, our loved ones — they live here with us, still, today, in the very air we breathe."
Wednesday, March 15
LECTURE # 3 | ON HUMOUR
In On Humour, the third of this year's CBC Massey Lectures, Tomson Highway invites us into the Cree world of scatological, wild laughter. He invokes the Trickster — a central figure to mythologies of many Indigenous communities across Turtle Island. The audience is invited to experience the world through joy and laughter: "Welcome to pleasure; welcome to fun. Welcome to the Trickster and his sense of humour. Welcome to our world of rampant insanity."
Thursday, March 16
LECTURE # 4 | ON SEX AND GENDER
In On Sex and Gender, the fourth of his CBC Massey Lectures, Tomson Highway explores some of the limits monotheism imposes our understanding of the human body and gender. In the world of Indigenous peoples, Highway writes, "the circle of pantheism has space for any number of genders" — an idea with fresh relevance for understanding our own times.
Friday, March 17
LECTURE # 5 | ON DEATH
Tomson Highway's fifth and final Massey lecture is titled On Death. Christianity, he argues, offers a dismal vision of the afterlife. The Greeks offered something a bit more positive. But in the Indigenous view of our life after death, he says, when we die, we stay right here on earth, "smack in the middle of that circle that is our garden, the one we were given the responsibility to care for when we came into this world as newborns."
Monday, March 20
INDIGENOUS SEXUALITY AND GENDER
In his lecture On Sex and Gender, playwright Tomson Highway explored the joys and nuances of sex, sexuality, and gender, through Indigenous perspectives. In this panel discussion following the Massey Lectures, Tomson Highway, Cree scholar and two-spirit activist Harlan Pruden, and Cree-Metis comedian Sasha Mark discuss the Indigenous sexuality in the aftermath of colonialism — from Cree mythology to the Vancouver dating scene. *This episode originally aired on November 21, 2022.
Tuesday, March 21
RICHARD OVENDEN DEFENDS LIBRARIES
Ukrainian libraries flattened by Russian missiles. Public records gone with the click of a mouse. Banned texts and bookshelves emptied in U.S. classrooms. Attacks on public knowledge and free expression have occurred throughout human history, but Richard Ovenden is sounding the alarm once more. In a talk given at the Toronto Public Library as part of Freedom to Read week, he calls libraries and archives "the front line of defence." IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed asks Ovenden — Director of the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford, and author of Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge — if that is their role alone.
Wednesday, March 22
THUCYDIDES: THE FIRST JOURNALIST, PART ONE
About 2,500 years ago, Thucydides travelled ancient Greece, gathering stories about a brutal war that plunged the ancient world into chaos. He set high standards for accuracy, objectivity and thoroughness in his reporting. IDEAS producer Nicola Luksic explains why his account of the Peloponnesian War is relevant today. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 7, 2011.
Thursday, March 23
REITH LECTURE 1: CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE
"We fear the mob but the mob is us." The BBC Reith Lectures return, and this year's theme is The Four Freedoms. In his 1941 State of the Union speech, President Franklin Roosevelt argued against the isolationist policies of the United States, and tried to justify American involvement in the Second World War. He invoked four concepts of freedom that all people are owed:
Freedom of speech
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want
And freedom from fear
In the first lecture, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Aidichie analyzes the state of free speech today, including the phenomenon some call "cancel culture." She argues that moral courage is required to resist threats to freedom of speech, be they political, legal or social.
Friday, March 24
THE MIDDLE ENGLISH DICTIONARY
The Middle English Dictionary, or MED, was 71 years in the making. Eventually published by the University of Michigan in 2001, it featured 15,000 pages, 55,000 definitions, and had 900,000 examples of usage gleaned from 400 years of medieval texts: letters, wills, treatises on astronomy, surgery, alchemy, and — of course — the art of hawking. Hundreds of people were involved in the MED's production including five editors and 125 lexicographers. Join IDEAS for an alphabetical odyssey as we take a romp through the Middle English Dictionary. *This episode was originally broadcast in 2004.
Monday, March 27
TO KNOW EVIL: THE POWER OF PHILOSOPHY IN TIMES OF WAR
As the war in Ukraine marches into its second year, forcing many academics to flee, an international group of philosophers came together in Toronto to ask a pressing question: what does philosophy offer in times of crisis?
The resulting lectures were presented at a conference by the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and offer a sweeping overview of philosophy's place in the public sphere. Today on IDEAS, Ukrainian scholar Mychailo Wynnyckyj and Yale philosopher Jason Stanley share their thoughts on how philosophy can illuminate the Ukrainian crisis — and inform our response to the war.
Tuesday, March 28
THUCYDIDES, PART TWO: LESSONS FROM THE PLAGUE OF ATHENS
The plague of Athens struck in 430 BC, violently killing up to half of the Greek city's population. Thucydides was on hand to document the grim symptoms, as well as the social and psychological fallout. His vivid account holds enduring lessons for us during pandemic times today. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 20, 2020.
Wednesday, March 29
MERCURY'S IN RETROGRADE: THE RISE OF ASTROLOGY
Belief in astrology is on the upswing, especially among younger people. That's maybe not surprising given that astrology's popularity rises in times of crisis and uncertainty. But since it has no predictive value, what meanings can be gleaned from a belief that the stars reveal all about us? This documentary entitled Mercury's in Retrograde examines the rise of popular astrology in the 1930s and how it fits into the consumer capitalism world we now inhabit.
Thursday, March 30
REITH LECTURE 2: ROWAN WILLIAMS
"Modern societies have settled for lukewarm tolerance." In the second BBC Reith Lecture, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams analyzes the state of freedom of worship in Western society. He argues that secular society has embraced a watered-down definition of religious freedom: the freedom to hold private beliefs, and to gather with others who share those beliefs. Essentially, that religion is no different from a hobby or leisure activity. What's missing, he says, is the freedom to behave in ways consistent with faith, and act, speak, and argue in society from a place of religious conviction.
Friday, March 31
THE BIRD MAN: ADVENTURES WITH SCIENTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE BILL MONTEVECCHI
In 2020, Stanford University ranked him in the world's top two per cent of scientists. More than 40 years ago, Bill Montevecchi left his New Jersey home to take a temporary university position in Newfoundland. He never left. Dynamic, inspiring, brilliant and daring would be just a few adjectives to put next to his name. The marine biologist's work with sea birds enlightens not just our knowledge about these magnificent creatures, but also of our planet — and our ourselves. IDEAS producer Mary Lynk spent three action-filled days with him, climbing over steep cliffs to spy on spectacular sea bird colonies and an overnight rescue mission saving the lives of young storm petrels leaving their nest for the first time.
