IDEAS schedule for February 2025
* Please note this schedule is subject to change.
Monday, February 3
THE AMAZING LIVES OF HENRY BOX BROWN
Enslaved in 1840s Virginia, an enslaved young man named Henry watches in horror as his wife and children are sold and taken. He decides then that he must escape, or die. So Henry has himself shipped in a small wooden crate to a free state, via U.S. Post. This is the true story of Henry Box Brown, and yet only one of his lives. He reinvents himself as "The Great African Magician," a performer who spends decades touring England, and then Canada, where he spent his final decade. Author Martha Cutter (The Many Resurrections of Henry Box Brown) and writer-scholar Daphne Brooks unbox the subversive political meaning in his act, and make a case for him as an early Black performance artist — one who continues to inspire reflection and action in our own time.
Tuesday, February 4
MARIA CHAPDELAINE
The novel Maria Chapdelaine by Louis Hémon was a global sensation when it was published in the early 20th century. It's since become a cornerstone of Quebec culture. In fact, the Musée Louis Hémon is the only literary museum in Quebec, and was reopened in the summer of 2024 at a cost of six million dollars. Yet Louis Hémon himself was actually from France, and was killed in a train accident before the novel was ever published. It's since been translated into over 20 languages, has inspired four film versions, several plays, an opera — even a pop song. And Maria the character has been painted, sculpted, and featured on a stamp. There's even a rue Maria Chapdelaine in Montreal — not bad for a fictional character. Yet today, the book remains far less known in English Canada and the English-speaking world. This documentary by contributor Catherine Annau examines the many lives that Maria Chapdelaine has lived, and continues to live.
Wednesday, February 5
THE TREE OF LIFE REVISITED
The Polish city of Lodz declared 2023 "the year of Chava Rosenfarb." Born there a century before, Rosenfarb was a Jewish-Canadian writer. She survived the Holocaust, and moved to Canada with her husband, abortion provider and activist Henry Morgentaler. Settling in Lethbridge, Alberta, Chana Rosenfarb became a major contributor to Yiddish literature, detailing her experiences in the Lodz ghetto through poetry, and in a book trilogy, The Tree of Life. This episode profiles the life of Rosenfarb, her legacy, and the politics of Holocaust remembrance in Poland today. It originally aired on Jan. 29, 2024.
Thursday, February 6
INDIGENOUS TRUTH IN THE FACE OF POWER: A JOURNALIST'S CALL TO ACTION
Award-winning journalist and author Brandi Morin says Reconciliation in Canada is on life support. She is calling for a revolution against the apathy and ignorance that she says keeps Indigenous people from healing and succeeding. Her presentation at the tenth annual Indigenous Speaker series lecture at Vancouver Island University is titled Indigenous Truth in the Face of Power: A Journalists Call to Action. After her lecture, Brandi Morin joined IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed for a conversation.
Friday, February 7
FROM GRIT TO GLORY: MARY ANN SHADD CARY
Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born in 1823 in Delaware to parents who were free African Americans. She moved to Canada in 1850 after America's passing of the Fugitive Slave Law. She founded a racially integrated school in Windsor, Ontario. Three years later she became the first Black woman publisher in Canada with her newspaper, The Provincial Freeman. The story of this Black woman who was a lawyer, publisher, and educator and whose work and legacy laid the groundwork for Black liberation in Canada has long been hidden from most Canadians. But a growing body of scholarship along with greater cultural attention is bringing Mary Ann Shadd Cary and her remarkable story to the masses. *This episode originally aired on Dec. 7, 2023.
Monday, February 10
NORTH ON NORTH
Inhabit Media is the only independent publishing company in the Canadian Arctic. Since 2006, it's been working to ensure Arctic voices are heard across Canada. They're at the forefront of a new era of Inuit literature, film and TV. From Iqaluit, IDEAS producer Pauline Holdsworth speaks with Lousie Flaherty, Ashley Qilavaq-Savard and Jamesie Fournier about telling the stories of their home, finding creativity and inspiration from the land, and the relationship between writing and education.
Tuesday, February 11
DREAMING OF BETTER: LIVING WITH BIPOLAR
Luke Galati is a writer and filmmaker living with bipolar disorder. In 2024, he was part of a CBC project aimed at creating broadcasting opportunities for people with disabilities. His documentary Dreaming of Better tells the story of his mental health struggles, and features both a personal essay as well as a series of conversations with health-care professionals and others who have bipolar disorder.
Wednesday, February 12
THE DESERVINGNESS LADDER
With increasingly diverse societies, the sorting of people into "us" and "them" is inevitable. This sorting brings with it a social and cultural assessment of who does, and does not, deserve social benefits and political rights. In liberal democracies, the "deservingness ladder" is constantly shifting and is sometimes at odds with liberal democratic values. As liberal democracies turn toward the extreme right, how is the deservingness ladder shifting and what happens when it's weaponized by right-wing populist leaders?
Thursday, February 13
CBC PODCAST | ON DRUGS: ALCOHOL
This time, it's personal. For years as host of the CBC podcast On Drugs, Geoff Turner has examined the history, culture, science and religion of drugs, from ancient Berzerkers and their mushroom rituals, to the German army's use of amphetamines, to the caffeine in millions of people's morning coffee. In this episode, Turner reveals his own struggles with alcohol, and explores the complicated legal and social status of the world's most popular recreational drug: ethanol.
Friday, February 14
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 was originally aired on Feb. 21, 2024.
Monday, February 17
SWINGING AND SINGING: THE VIOLIN
The violin may be one of the most difficult instruments to master. And its associations with high-brow music are longstanding. But for musician and radio producer, David Schulman, the violin can swing and sing like nothing else. Schulman is based in Washington, DC, but recently traveled to the north of Italy to try and discover the original trees from which Antonio Stradivari made his masterpieces. It's a journey of surprise and delight — as is Schulman's second documentary featured in this episode: a journey that began with a bootlegged live album of jazz violinist, Stuff Smith. That documentary was nominated for a Prix Italia. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 28, 2023.
Tuesday, February 18
THE LINK BETWEEN ANTI-ELITISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM: ADAM GOPNIK
New Yorker writer and former CBC Massey Lecturer, Adam Gopnik, spoke at Massey College in Toronto during the fall of 2024. In the second annual Irving Abella Lecture, he examines the historic dynamics of anti-semitism from both the political right and left, and traces how they inform and shape contemporary anti-elitism and anti-urbanism. Hitler's original targets, for example, weren't the impoverished Jews of eastern Europe, who suffered immeasurably during the Holocaust. It was the class of literate, educated, accomplished Jews in major urban centres — the elites of their place and time.
Wednesday, February 19
NAMING OF LIFE: THE RACE TO CLASSIFY UNIDENTIFIED SPECIES
In a time of unprecedented biodiversity loss — what's in a name? In 2023, scientists announced a startling discovery in the Pacific Ocean — in a site proposed for deep sea mining, the seafloor was not a barren wasteland, but a rich underwater garden, bustling with life — in fact, thousands of undiscovered life forms. The discovery of so many species unknown to science raised concerns about unintended impacts of ocean mining, but it also highlighted an unsettling fact about our relationship to the natural world: 86 per cent of land species and 91 per cent of marine species remain undiscovered. With an unprecedented change to the natural world underway, are we running out of time to classify the life around us — and what is lost if we don't?
Thursday, February 20
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 love, 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.
Friday, February 21
WILD GIRLS: TIYA MILES
Harvard historian Tiya Miles won many awards and distinctions for her book, All That She Carried, the story of a cotton sack and the three Black women — Rose, her nine-year old daughter Ashley and great-granddaughter Ruth Middleton — whose lives were emblematized by the embroidered words on it. Professor Miles, who's previously been a guest on IDEAS, delivers a talk in Montreal based on her book, followed by an onstage interview with host Nahlah Ayed about her latest work, Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation. *This episode originally aired on April 10, 2024.
Monday, February 24
SAY YES: IMPROVISATION IN ART AND LIFE
For many people, the thought of speaking in public is horrifying. Imagine trying to make people laugh. Without a script. And just making it up as you go along. This documentary by Peter Brown shows how improv can be both exhilarating and liberating — and maybe, just maybe, a force for good.
Tuesday, February 25
A COMMON CULTURE — WILL THE U.S. SWALLOW CANADA?
Four decades ago, trade negotiations in North America prompted a flurry of fear and patriotism in Canada. Many worried that dissolving trade barriers between the U.S. and Canada would lead to the creation of one homogeneous culture. Others thought the two countries had already merged, culturally speaking. In 1986, the CBC's Carol Off sought to separate the paranoia from the prudence. This episode brings together extracts from her original two-part documentary, which speaks with uncanny directness to the renewed wave of patriotism — and fears — reported in Canada now.
Wednesday, February 26
BOB RAE ON THE U.N. AT 80
In 1945, as the Second World War ended, the United Nations brought together 50 nations of the world. Their historic charter aimed to uphold international peace, security, and human rights. But the UN is now criticized on many different fronts — from accusations of ineffectiveness, to outright corruption. Bob Rae — Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York — tells an audience in Winnipeg why he still believes in the institution. His public talk is called The UN at 80: Successes, Hopes, Failures, and Challenges. It is the Paul Buteaux Memorial Lecture, delivered in January 2025 at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
Thursday, February 27
OUR BODIES, OUR CELLS
Our bodies are a great paradox. We are made up of trillions of cells that are both independent and interconnected units of life. Each one is full of millions of moving parts, but the atoms from which they are built are almost entirely empty space. In other words, our bodies contain mind-boggling amounts of stuff, and yet we're mostly nothing. This documentary takes a literal deep dive into the microscopic world of the body — a journey through sound, music, narrative and description — into cells, and the exquisitely designed nanomachines they contain, zooming all the way into the subatomic realm until we can zoom in no further. *This episode originally aired on Jan. 31, 2024.
Friday, February 28
PURO CUBANO: THE MEANING OF TOBACCO IN CUBA
Cuban cigar makers say that over 200 pairs of hands touch each cigar, from seed to ornate box. Pedro Mendes travels though Cuba, tracing that journey, to understand what tobacco means to the country. He visits a tobacco farm to learn about the impacts that climate change and an economic crisis are having on the livelihood of farmers. He meets with cigar rollers and tobacco historians to discover the cultural and religious role of the leaf. He tours one of Havana's biggest cigar factories to witness the final stages in creating this iconic product. Cigars are a symbol of Cuba, and a Cuban way of life and resistance, is under severe threat. *This episode originally aired on Feb. 5, 2024.
