Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchHumboldt's Ghost, Pt 1: Origins of our 200 year-old public education system
Two hundred years ago, Wilhelm von Humboldt created the public education system as we know it today. At the heart of his philosophy of education was the concept of Bildung — reaching one's inner pote…
Published on 11 months, 1 week ago
Bureaumania: A 'Granular' Look at Corporate Red Tape
Bureaucracies were created to get the work done and get it done efficiently, according to 19th-century thinker Max Weber. So why are there more and more meaningless executive jobs that contribute not…
Published on 11 months, 1 week ago
For the Sake of the Common Good: Honouring Lois Wilson
The late Lois Wilson didn’t tell you what to believe — she just lived by example. And what an example. She was a minister, Senator, human rights advocate — and inspiration. She lived out her Christia…
Published on 11 months, 1 week ago
Death and the Artist: Four Stories
A final experiment from a dying musician. A painter whose work finds its cultural moment, posthumously. An aged writer intent on ‘getting to know death.’ From David Bowie to little-known creatives, t…
Published on 11 months, 1 week ago
New Yorker Writer Calvin Trillin: A Warm Weather Nova Scotian
New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin calls himself one-sixth Canadian. For 55 years, he and his family have spent their summers in Nova Scotia — what he calls: The Home Place. IDEAS producer Mary Lynk sp…
Published on 11 months, 1 week ago
Pursuing the Mysteries of Gravity with a Radical New Theory
Theoretical physicist Claudia de Rham has spent her life captivated by gravity. She has taken up flying airplanes, scuba diving and was even an astronaut candidate. Her book, The Beauty of Falling: A…
Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago
Brutalist Architecture, Beyond Aesthetics
Brutalist architecture has been celebrated as monumental and derided as ‘concrete monstrosity.' But the people who depend on these buildings are often caught in between. IDEAS explores the implicatio…
Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago
Transhumance: An Ancient Practice at Risk
For millennia, human beings along with their domesticated animals have travelled to bring sheep, goats, cattle, and other animals to better grazing areas. The ancient practice, known as transhumance,…
Published on 11 months, 4 weeks ago
Author Robert Macfarlane on the relationship between landscape and the human heart
Robert Macfarlane says his writing is about the relationship between landscape and the human heart. His books share his encounters with treacherous mountain passages, mammoth glaciers flowing percept…
Published on 11 months, 4 weeks ago
Arctic Amazon Art Project: The Mural, Part One
The Arctic and the Amazon may be far apart geographically, but art connects them intimately. As part of a public art project bringing Indigenous artists from both regions together, Inuk artist Niap a…
Published on 11 months, 4 weeks ago