Big Ideas: Episodes
Cultural historian and author, Margaret Visser, explores the history and significance of gratitude.
Dr. Ernesto Spinelli delivers a lecture "Exploring Death Anxiety" at an International Conference on Personal Meaning
Dr. Kirk Schneider explores therapeutic approaches to the mystery of being in a lecture delivered at an International Conference on Personal Meaning.
University of Toronto Professor of Psychology Jordan Peterson discusses the nature of evil and its distinction from tragedy in this lecture presented at the 2008 Conference on Personal Meaning.
Author and scholar, Thomas Homer-Dixon, explores the convergence of natural, social, and economic stresses that could lead to the breakdown of world economies and political systems.
"No Educator Left Behind" is the title of this lecture by Mark Federman. In it Federman contends that, as a result of the changes the internet has brought to the way students communicate and interact, universities, if they are to remain relevant, must move from the current model of education as skills ...
Political science professor Ron Deibert looks at the issue of internet censorship and surveillance around the world.
Best-selling author, Richard Florida, describes how the creative class is impacting cities, business and society at large.
Leanne Simpson of Athabasca University's Centre for World Indigenous Knowledge and Research delivers a lecture entitled, "Can Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge Survive in the Modern World?"
Ronald Wright, the author of <i>What Is America?: A Short History of the New World Order</i>, examines the dichotomy between "America's ideals and the realities". Wright discusses how such conflicts as those between Native Americans and the Europeans who came to settle the new world have shaped the American ...
University of Toronto philosophy professor and author, Mark Kingwell, and journalist Malcolm Gladwell square off in a lively debate about social change and how best to achieve it.
Drawing on his experience with drug addicted patients from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Dr. Gabor Mate discusses how the medical and legal systems are failing in the so called "war on drugs". Dr. Mate reads from his fourth book, "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction", and ...
In light of the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, Ovide Mercredi, chief of the Misipawistic Cree nation and former chief of the Assembly of First Nations, reflects on what true reconciliation means and explains that it will only work if the reconciliation process engages ...
Jefferson Medical College professor Salman Akhtar discusses "The Trauma of Geophysical Dislocation", proposing that psychoanalysts need to pay special attention to their immigrant patients. Akhtar suggests that the immigration experience creates disruptions to the waking screen that are too often ignored ...
Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., delivers this year's Donner Canadian Foundation lecture drawing upon his recently released book The Great Experiment: The Story of Ancient Empires, Modern States and the Quest for a Global Nation.
Benjamin Barber's books include <i>Strong Democracy</i>, <i>Jihad vs. McWorld</i> and <i>Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole</i>. Speaking at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Barber explains how the ideal of people as citizens has been ...
"Time and Einstein in the 21st Century: The Coolest Stuff in the Universe" is the title of this exceptionally entertaining lecture. Phillips, who works with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, demonstrates the cooling potential of liquid nitrogen, the laser based technique known as "optical ...
Professor Richard C. Lewontin of Harvard University delivers a lecture on the topic of The Co-evolution of Organisms and the Environment.
Alberto Manguel on the duality of Pablo Picasso's artistic brilliance and personal evil.
Dr. Guy Proulx, Director of Psychology and NeuroRehabilitation at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care delivers a lecture entitled, Wisdom Versus Dementia: A Walk Through the Aging Brain.