podcast

Ideas

CBC

IDEAS is a place for people who like to think. If you value deep conversation and unexpected reveals, this show is for you. From the roots and rise of authoritarianism to near-death experiences to the history of toilets, no topic is…

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How our education system is far from its original ideals 2026-09-04 · 54m Open
Public education was built on this key concept — now it's gone 2026-09-03 · 54m Open
For 40 years trains brought classrooms to children 2026-09-02 · 54m Open
Confronting the escalating attacks on universities 2026-09-01 · 54m Open
Should homework be banned for students? 2026-08-31 · 54m
How a German philosopher predicted our digital age 2026-08-28 · 54m Open
How the principles of St. Augustine guide the Catholic Church 2026-08-27 · 54m Open
How an 'untouchable' inspired resistance against inequality in India 2026-08-26 · 54m Open
Why Gandhi's vision for an inclusive India never materialized 2026-08-25 · 54m Open
The suffragist who was too radical for Susan. B. Anthony 2026-08-24 · 54m Open
Where to find 'critical hope' in hard times 2026-08-21 · 54m Open
The overlapping truths of history and fiction 2026-08-20 · 54m Open
Turn to the power of 'freudenfreude' in times of despair 2026-08-19 · 54m Open
David Bowie took his own death as a creative catalyst 2026-08-18 · 54m Open
How to brace for a world of unheard-of conditions 2026-08-17 · 54m Open
Bringing a farm — and its philosophy — back to life 2026-08-13 · 54m Open
Walk with us through a rare old-growth forest in peril 2026-08-12 · 54m Open
How the Anthropocene is changing the elements — and us 2026-08-11 · 54m Open
What emerges from the ashes after a wildfire? (Pt 3) 2026-08-10 · 54m Open
How Indigenous ecology is reviving land destroyed by wildfires (Pt 2) 2026-08-10 · 54m Open
How brutal wildfires are 'killing' Indigenous ways of life (Pt 1) 2026-08-10 · 54m
A book prescription for mental health? 2026-08-07 · 54m
Protecting childhood innocence is a disservice to kids, argues expert 2026-08-06 · 54m
Eugenic thinking has never gone away 2026-08-05 · 54m
Wait, so addiction might not be a brain disease? 2026-08-04 · 54m
Are psychopaths real? A review of the science says, no 2026-08-03 · 54m
Why we should 'fight like hell' against Big AI 2026-07-31 · 54m
We believe in artificial intelligence the same way we believe in ghosts 2026-07-30 · 54m
With a decline in reading is our capacity to think eroding? 2026-07-29 · 54m
What if AI had empathy and 'maternal instincts'? 2026-07-28 · 54m
Artificial Intimacy: Love, Grief, and AI Chatbots 2026-07-27 · 54m
Can the fierce wars of today end in peace? 2026-07-24 · 54m
Was justice served by South Africa's peace accord? 2026-07-23 · 54m
How leaders in the former Yugoslavia forged peace in 1995 2026-07-22 · 54m
Lessons from last century’s failed Mideast peace deal 2026-07-21 · 54m
What it took to end a 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland 2026-07-20 · 54m
With a decline in reading is our capacity to think eroding? 2026-07-20 · 54m
Buttons give the illusion of power but hide the consequences 2026-07-17 · 54m
Blue jeans have a dark secret 2026-07-16 · 54m
Love or hate math, geometry is embedded in daily life 2026-07-15 · 54m
How casino culture plays with our brains 2026-07-14 · 54m
How Brutalist architecture goes beyond aesthetics 2026-07-13 · 54m
Redeeming swamps from their wasteland reputation 2026-07-10 · 54m
The fear of fire is taking control of us 2026-07-09 · 54m
Suzuki's Survival Guide | How We Got To This Point 2026-07-08 · 54m
Suzuki’s Survival Guide | A Warning 2026-07-07 · 54m
Why oil is a 'complicated saviour' to the world 2026-07-06 · 54m
A witch, a demon and an exorcism? Welcome to life in 1660 2026-07-03 · 54m
Reimagining Franklin's quest for the Northwest Passage 2026-07-02 · 54m
Why Canadian patriotism isn't blind nationalism 2026-07-01 · 54m
Why the 1976 novel Bear is still controversial — and relevant 2026-06-30 · 54m
The best comedians in the U.S. are Canadians 2026-06-29 · 54m
How 4 Makes and Breaks Rules | The Greatest Numbers of All Time 2026-06-26 · 54m
The 33,000 Horsepower Gamechanger | The Greatest Numbers of All Time 2026-06-25 · 54m
27 Club Lore | The Greatest Numbers of All Time 2026-06-24 · 54m
12 is Sublime | The Greatest Numbers of All Time 2026-06-23 · 54m
The Curse of 13 | The Greatest Numbers of All Time 2026-06-22 · 54m
Why moral suffering can be a good thing 2026-06-19 · 54m
What if God is the possibility of the impossible? 2026-06-18 · 54m
From Dua Lipa to Broadway, Houdini never disappears 2026-06-17 · 54m
Without justice, can unbearable grief subside? 2026-06-16 · 54m
The unforgivable crime of being queer in Africa 2026-06-15 · 54m
Podcasts in Uganda and Ghana are reclaiming sex and sexuality 2026-06-12 · 54m
Why joy is most valuable when it's in public 2026-06-11 · 54m
'When I'm bad, I'm better' – The revolutionary Mae West 2026-06-10 · 54m
Who's the hero when the choice is impossible? 2026-06-09 · 54m
The Billionaire Age Pt 3 | How oligarchs are taking over the world 2026-06-08 · 54m
Confronting 'Housing Inc.' | Meet the 2026 CBC Massey Lecturer 2026-06-08 · 9m
Weekend Listen: Artificial Intimacy from CBC’s Understood 2026-06-06 · 37m
The best — and worst — ideas of the last six decades 2026-06-05 · 54m
How IDEAS saved a listener from sending a regrettable email 2026-06-04 · 54m
CBC Massey Lecturers reveal how the talks changed them 2026-06-03 · 54m
The time when a guest said, "I love you!" 2026-06-02 · 54m
How an IDEAS episode on traffic changed a doctor's practice 2026-06-01 · 54m
The most important numbers in the universe 2026-05-29 · 54m
So... who wants a pipeline? 2026-05-28 · 54m
How port cities like Alexandria shaped the world 2026-05-27 · 54m
The unforgivable crime of being queer in Africa 2026-05-26 · 55m
The Billionaire Age Pt 2 | Disney heiress on the dangers of extreme wealth 2026-05-26 · 54m
The real reasons why more young women freeze their eggs 2026-05-26 · 54m
What does it mean for a river to be ‘alive’? 2026-05-25 · 58m
Why there's no place like Oz 2026-05-22 · 54m
Escaped slaves, pirates and 'free love' in ancient history? 2026-05-21 · 54m
Why yellow traffic lights were designed to be ambiguous 2026-05-20 · 54m
What North Korea’s personality cult has to do with Jesus 2026-05-19 · 54m
Why laughter is so contagious 2026-05-18 · 54m
He championed a radical dream — a 'United States of Africa' 2026-05-15 · 54m
The origins of celebrity, from medieval divas to Kris Jenner 2026-05-14 · 54m
Believe it or not, romance novels are more popular than ever 2026-05-13 · 54m
How Canada forgot it once had a segregated health system 2026-05-12 · 54m
Pt 2 | What the River Wants to Be 2026-05-11 · 54m
Can abolishing all political parties topple fascism? 2026-05-08 · 54m
How to measure 'prosperity' 2026-05-07 · 54m
What intellectual influencers teach us, one video at a time 2026-05-06 · 54m
Could the Dust Bowl of the 30s happen again? 2026-05-05 · 54m
Why the world feels like a shipwreck 2026-05-04 · 54m
Why the world feels like a shipwreck 2026-05-04 · 54m
Your tomatoes have a backstory and it’s not always pretty 2026-05-01 · 54m
The 'shocking betrayal' of widespread antisemitism 2026-04-30 · 54m
How a feminist flipped the colonial travelogue on its head 2026-04-29 · 54m
The line between reasonable and unacceptable bias 2026-04-27 · 54m
What you should do when accused of being biased 2026-04-24 · 54m
Defying haunting colonial history with literary imagination 2026-04-23 · 54m
Pt 1 | What the River Wants to Be 2026-04-22 · 54m
Will AI save us or damn us? 2026-04-21 · 54m
Are we 'born obsolete'? How technology makes us feel ashamed 2026-04-20 · 54m
Weekend Listen | Changing Minds: Psilocybin, Medicine, and the Limits of the Law (via White Coat, Black Art) 2026-04-18 · 49m
How to harness your own biases 2026-04-17 · 54m
Is the two-state solution dead? 2026-04-16 · 54m
Science fiction isn't fact, no matter what Big Tech tells you 2026-04-15 · 54m
Work: Loving it, hating it, and getting through the shift 2026-04-14 · 54m
A machine that could save us from war — and global warming 2026-04-10 · 54m
The complex legacy of the first European 'slave castle' 2026-04-09 · 54m
Worst marriage ever! The story of Jason and Medea 2026-04-08 · 54m
How Stephen Lewis helped changed the world's mind about AIDS 2026-04-07 · 54m
Legends and facts of the shapeshifting Queen of Sheba 2026-04-06 · 54m
The final days of Jesus as 'heard' by J.S. Bach 2026-04-03 · 54m
The ultimate to-do list for living a good life 2026-04-02 · 54m
How Hitchcock's 'The Birds' speaks to 21st-century anxieties 2026-04-01 · 54m
The Billionaire Age Pt 1 | How did we get here? 2026-03-31 · 54m
Why everything you thought about earthworms is wrong 2026-03-30 · 54m
Massey Lecture Part 5 | A human rights agenda for Canada 2026-03-27 · 63m
Why is bombing civilians still a military tactic? 2026-03-26 · 54m
When a poem changes your life 2026-03-23 · 54m
Massey Lecture Part 4 | How people power makes human rights real 2026-03-20 · 69m
Secularism on trial 2026-03-19 · 54m
'There's no such thing as clean energy' 2026-03-18 · 54m
How port cities like Singapore shaped the world 2026-03-17 · 54m
She uncovered the lost women of science and made history 2026-03-16 · 54m
Massey Lecture Part 3 | Human rights don’t have to be earned 2026-03-13 · 65m
The power of music in the shadow of Iran 2026-03-12 · 54m
How anxiety over today's democracy is political 2026-03-11 · 54m
How math and literature are unexpectedly connected 2026-03-10 · 54m
What if your favourite food became extinct? 2026-03-09 · 54m
Massey Lecture Part 2 | The six years that remade human rights 2026-03-06 · 64m
Lessons from the women of Iran's 1979 'stolen' revolution 2026-03-05 · 54m
God, parades and authoritarianism on the streets of Georgia 2026-03-04 · 54m
'Accidental activist' links resource extraction to missing and murdered Indigenous women 2026-03-02 · 54m
Massey Lecture Part 1 | Renewing the promise of human rights 2026-02-27 · 64m
How can we prevent AI from becoming a menace? 2026-02-25 · 54m
What will happen to us when the internet dies? 2026-02-24 · 54m
When your grandmother is accused of being a 'fascist spy' 2026-02-24 · 54m
The spark that ignited a 40-year fight for human rights 2026-02-20 · 54m
Why AI needs to be nicer to us and develop 'maternal instincts' 2026-02-18 · 54m
Why winter does not justify ditching your bike for driving 2026-02-17 · 54m
From tests to sports, why we choke when it matters most 2026-02-16 · 55m
How a man escaped slavery by mailing himself to freedom 2026-02-13 · 55m
What Chinese science-fiction has to tell us about reality 2026-02-12 · 55m
Why only the will of the people can save democracy 2026-02-11 · 55m
To mudlark is to scavenge for a piece of history to keep 2026-02-10 · 55m
How a natural catastrophe 8,000 years ago may have fueled Brexit 2026-02-09 · 55m
The trailblazing all-Black baseball team that made history 2026-02-06 · 55m
The 'powerful teachings' of water can lead to a better world 2026-02-05 · 55m
Why the Monroe Doctrine has world leaders on edge 2026-02-04 · 55m
How to develop 'in the zone' hyper focus 2026-02-03 · 55m
Flexing Canada's 'soft power' could help shift geopolitics 2026-02-02 · 55m
PT 2 | An injustice system where 'you can buy your way out' 2026-01-30 · 55m
PT 1 | An injustice system where 'you can buy your way out' 2026-01-29 · 55m
Can empathy be dangerous? 2026-01-28 · 55m
Why AI needs limits so humans can flourish 2026-01-27 · 55m
Can a trucker's life entice young people to take the wheel? 2026-01-26 · 55m
How Britain caused Ireland's Great Famine 2026-01-23 · 55m
Birth gives us life. But do you know its history? 2026-01-22 · 55m
How a 'conspiracy of decency' could build a better future 2026-01-21 · 55m
It's time for a 'moral revolution.' This is a call to action 2026-01-20 · 55m
What makes left-handers special? 2026-01-19 · 55m
How Galileo revolutionized science to make way for modernity 2026-01-16 · 55m
How Sudan’s generous spirit survives war and neglect 2026-01-15 · 55m
The Never-Ending Fall of Rome 2026-01-15 · 54m
The bittersweet freedom to grieve in Syria 2026-01-14 · 55m
How horses shaped humankind, from inspiring pants to vaccines 2026-01-13 · 54m
We're not machines. Why should our online world define life? 2026-01-09 · 54m
'Dialogue between science and religion matters to the planet' 2026-01-08 · 54m
The most famous French-Canadian novel you've never heard of 2026-01-07 · 54m
When words get in the way, vocal improv saves the day 2026-01-06 · 54m
Ditch democracy. This movement wants tech-elites to govern 2026-01-05 · 54m
Why autonomy is vital to MAID law and the right to die 2026-01-02 · 54m
New Year's Levee | Stories we're working on in 2026 2026-01-01 · 43m
Could resetting the body's clock help cure jet lag? 2025-12-31 · 54m
How the invention of the book shaped humanity 2025-12-30 · 54m
Hallelujah! Let the light of Black gospel shine 101 2025-12-29 · 55m
Jazz fan or not, you've probably heard this musician play 2025-12-26 · 54m
Revealing facts about the Christmas song meant for Easter 2025-12-24 · 54m
An apocalyptic retelling of the Christmas story 2025-12-23 · 54m
Why spirituality is central to Indigenous mathematics 2025-12-19 · 54m
How 'body horror' helps us confront the fears within us 2025-12-18 · 54m
How to change minds and find common ground 2025-12-17 · 54m
The 'dangerous' promise of a techno-utopian future 2025-12-15 · 54m
Open your gift: a podcast of nonfiction recommendations 2025-12-12 · 54m
Pt 2 | Architect Frank Gehry on how to exit life 2025-12-09 · 54m
Pt 1 | The architecture that brought Frank Gehry to tears 2025-12-08 · 54m
How music transports the Afghan diaspora to their homeland 2025-11-28 · 54m
Why cities are targeted in wartime (updated) 2025-11-27 · 54m
Why hospitals stopped being hospitable 2025-11-26 · 54m
How guest-host power dynamics shape migration 2025-11-25 · 54m
Can you ever truly return home again? 2025-11-24 · 54m
How overlooked veterans make history in their own words 2025-11-12 · 54m
Why Canadian veterans are conflicted about Remembrance Day 2025-11-11 · 54m
Not a war story. This is about what comes after for veterans 2025-11-10 · 54m
What it takes to become a ruthless tyrant 2025-11-07 · 54m
First historian Herodotus knew the power of story 2025-11-06 · 54m
Hope lies in knowing that "we've changed the world before” 2025-11-05 · 55m
How mind-bending theories could solve mysteries in physics 2025-11-04 · 55m
To fix America's caste system, acknowledge it exists: author 2025-11-03 · 54m
Mexican fiction turns drug kingpins into vicious vampires 2025-10-31 · 54m
Can democracies survive the attacks on the rule of law? 2025-10-30 · 54m
This lawyer turns real legal cases into page-turners 2025-10-29 · 54m
How Indigenous Americans discovered Europe 2025-10-28 · 54m
33 years of the campus free speech controversy 2025-10-27 · 54m
Can you have compassion for someone you never agree with? 2025-10-24 · 54m
George Eliot's invaluable life lessons on confronting reality 2025-10-23 · 54m
This Italian painter was a feminist before the word existed 2025-10-17 · 54m
Why practicing empathy is far from simple 2025-10-16 · 54m
Why 'follow your heart' spirituality is actually religion 2025-10-15 · 54m
How 60s Scoop 'warriors' reclaimed their Indigenous roots 2025-10-14 · 54m
An homage to chickens, a dinosaur, dinner and backyard pet 2025-10-13 · 54m
Imprisoned Syrian wrote poetry imagining the fall of the regime. Now it's come true 2025-10-10 · 54m
How absurdist theatre is an act of resistance 2025-10-09 · 54m
How a translation movement made Western philosophers famous 2025-10-08 · 54m
Why progressives may not be as 'woke' as they think 2025-10-06 · 54m
Why a proposed 'new capitalism' is contested 2025-10-03 · 54m
What life was like for Luke Galati in a psychiatric ward 2025-10-01 · 54m
How Inuk activist Aaju Peter learned to 'decolonize' her mind 2025-09-30 · 54m
How rhythm helps us walk, talk — and even love 2025-09-26 · 54m
The natural — and unnatural — history of air on Earth 2025-09-25 · 54m
Why the world feels like a shipwreck 2025-09-24 · 54m
Can a conference change our troubled world? 2025-09-23 · 54m
Listen to the sound of metal in musical form by 8 composers 2025-09-18 · 54m
Why smell — our invisible superpower — deserves more acclaim 2025-09-16 · 54m
Meet Alex Neve, the 2025 CBC Massey Lecturer 2025-09-11 · 20m
Why there's no place like Oz 2025-09-09 · 54m
What Chinese Science Fiction Has to Tell Us 2025-09-02 · 54m
The threat next door: How NATO’s newest members are preparing to defend against Russia (via The House) 2025-09-01 · 47m
How Brutalist architecture goes beyond aesthetics 2025-08-29 · 54m
Libraries are fighting for their freedom — and our democracy 2025-08-28 · 54m
Why PEI cares more than any other province about voting 2025-08-27 · 54m
Has the housing crisis shaken your trust in democracy? 2025-08-26 · 54m
Attacking our biggest fear — political polarization 2025-08-25 · 54m
#5: What makes a great conversation? 2025-08-22 · 54m
# 4: What it means to truly listen 2025-08-21 · 54m
#3: How a dispute can lead to unity 2025-08-20 · 54m
#2: What we can learn from our conversations with strangers 2025-08-19 · 54m
#1: Why we need to have a conversation about conversations 2025-08-18 · 54m
What a cultural genocide took from Indigenous people in Canada 2025-08-15 · 54m
How inequality is undermining liberal democracy 2025-08-14 · 54m
Why the power of technology relies on an adaptive mindset 2025-08-13 · 54m
How to think for ourselves — is it even possible? 2025-08-12 · 54m
A better world needs to be built on empathy: human rights scholar 2025-08-11 · 54m
Making space for moments of joy in dark times 2025-08-08 · 54m
Why is it so hard to embrace leisure time? 2025-08-07 · 54m
Why music — even sad music — is 'inherently joyful' 2025-08-06 · 55m
Why philosophy needs to ditch class, and go to a pub 2025-08-05 · 54m
How to flourish in a broken world 2025-08-04 · 54m
A lesson in hope and why we need to slow down 2025-08-01 · 54m
Who owns Outer Space? 2025-07-31 · 54m
Making the case for what a university could and should be 2025-07-30 · 54m
Why are women still outsiders in the trades? 2025-07-29 · 54m
Why doesn't our healthcare include the well-being of doctors? 2025-07-28 · 54m
How poetry offers insight into the meaning of life 2025-07-25 · 54m
How a novel saved the Inuktitut language from disappearing 2025-07-24 · 54m
Decades on, David Suzuki sees the same problem: human-first mindset (via Front Burner) 2025-07-23 · 31m
We have a moral responsibility to this planet: David Suzuki 2025-07-23 · 54m
Championing the quiet power of listening 2025-07-22 · 54m
Will the real Martin Luther please stand up? 2025-07-18 · 54m
Meet the original 'Father of Economics' — it's not Adam Smith 2025-07-17 · 54m
Is human intelligence overrated? 2025-07-15 · 54m
A lesson on why NOT to engage in polarized discussions 2025-07-14 · 54m
What rights do we need for our future? 2025-07-11 · 54m
Is our right to freedom of expression limitless? 2025-07-10 · 54m
Why are refugee rights not protected equally? 2025-07-09 · 54m
Is our right to privacy meaningless in this tech age? 2025-07-08 · 54m
Who has a ‘right to life’? 2025-07-07 · 54m
How did the Taj Mahal turn into a bouncy castle? 2025-07-04 · 54m
What you may have missed in this famous painter's artwork 2025-07-03 · 55m
The mysterious death of a great Canadian painter 2025-07-02 · 55m
The heart of Canadian pride shines through Joyce Wieland's art 2025-06-30 · 54m
Voices of a silenced history: inside Bulgaria's Gulag 2025-06-27 · 54m
We’re drawn to the beauty of the ocean. An artist reveals why 2025-06-26 · 54m
Why do people hate? 2025-06-25 · 54m
How Jaws made us believe white sharks are real villains 2025-06-23 · 54m
Journalist Connie Walker on uncovering her family's dark history 2025-06-20 · 54m
How Latin translation made Western philosophers famous 2025-06-19 · 54m
Inside our loneliness epidemic 2025-06-18 · 54m
Perdita Felicien on how to navigate life’s biggest hurdles 2025-06-17 · 54m
The making of an ‘authoritarian personality’ 2025-06-16 · 54m
Canadian universities as safe havens for scholars-in-exile 2025-06-13 · 54m
Black history, vividly told through the colour blue 2025-06-12 · 56m
The movement that unlocked a new masculinity – Dandyism 2025-06-09 · 54m
How Canadian nationalism died 2025-06-06 · 54m
The famously polarizing father of capitalism 2025-06-05 · 54m
What it’s like to discover you have ADHD after 50 2025-06-04 · 54m
What it means to fully embrace neurodiversity 2025-06-03 · 54m
Do books have the power to heal us? 2025-06-02 · 54m
Why we can’t live without the universal feeling of disgust 2025-05-29 · 55m
The philosophy behind why humans are so self-conscious 2025-05-28 · 55m
How the fear of fire is taking control of us 2025-05-27 · 54m
Bringing child sex abusers out of the shadows 2025-05-23 · 55m
Why our long term relationship with the U.S. is done 2025-05-22 · 55m
Where did modern news culture come from? Think Shakespeare 2025-05-21 · 55m
Champions of cormorants argue the water bird is unfairly vilified 2025-05-20 · 55m
The three ingredients in an autocrat's recipe for power 2025-05-16 · 55m
A pig was shot dead in 1859. It sparked a British-U.S. war 2025-05-15 · 55m
The trailblazing all-Black baseball team that made history 2025-05-14 · 55m
Russia’s constant craving for U.S. recognition 2025-05-13 · 55m
Her job is to find buried children at residential schools 2025-05-12 · 55m
The power of white evangelical Christians in MAGA politics 2025-05-09 · 54m
There's no potential danger of AI discrimination — 'it's here' 2025-05-08 · 55m
The one exception that makes killing civilians legal in war 2025-05-07 · 55m
The 2,000-year-old travel list to complete before you die 2025-05-06 · 55m
Canadian troops who freed the Netherlands from Nazis 2025-05-05 · 55m
What it means to call your loved one a ‘corpse’ 2025-05-02 · 54m
The limitless mind and body of an 83-year-old super-athlete 2025-05-01 · 54m
How the American cowboy ignited the Republican movement 2025-04-30 · 54m
Elections results are in. IDEAS recommends World Report 2025-04-29 · 11m
New to IDEAS? Start here 2025-04-18 · 2m
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