Alaa Al Aswany is one of Egypt’s most important authors. While his work is banned in his country, including his latest novel about a fictionalized account of the failed Egyptian revolution of 2011, the writer believes it’s only a matter of time before the revolution prevails.

Ideas

Alaa Al Aswany: The Republic of False Truths

Anthropologist Darren Byler sees a confluence in Xinjiang province in China of constant surveillance, state data harvesting and private companies driven by profit. How does this apply to the global race for supremacy in artificial intelligence?

On China: Detention, Surveillance — and Profit

Christians, Muslims and Jews lived together in relative harmony in medieval Spain. Then the Spanish Inquisition came along, turning a pluralistic society into a police state. Writer Erna Paris, who passed away earlier this month, explored this history for IDEAS calling what happened in Spain "a cautionary tale for today." *This episode originally aired on January 21, 2015.

From Tolerance to Tyranny: Erna Paris

Ice Age communities were crawling with kids. Researchers estimate that anywhere from 40 to 65 per cent of prehistoric societies were made up of children. Archaeologist April Nowell has been researching the lives of Paleolithic children for decades. She argues that prehistoric children played a critical part in the cultural evolution of humans.

Growing up in the Ice Age: April Nowell

In the face of death, disappointment or fear we look for meaning, a sense of order, and consolation to help us carry on. Michael Ignatieff, in a public forum with Nahlah Ayed for the Toronto Public Library, discusses his book, On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times.

Searching for Solace: Michael Ignatieff

All of us are biased. We have individual biases, momentary biases, morning biases and evening biases. Our institutions are biased. Our constitutions are biased. So what to do about it? IDEAS producer Tom Howell continues his investigation into what the field of ‘bias studies’ has to offer us.

The Bias List

Feminism today is wracked with inequality. Rafia Zakaria, author of Against White Feminism, says feminists must have a reckoning within and that white women must make space for those women who may not be the policymakers or theorists, but who live the feminist struggle every day of their lives.

Feminism is dead. Long live feminism.

In her final Massey Lecture, Esi Edugyan speaks to how China and Japan created their ideas of Blackness from imported stories of pre-twentieth-century Africa, "shaping cultural expectations and in turn shaping the Black history and experience in Asia." For Esi Edugyan going to Asia served as a lesson in the power of storytelling and also the dangers of Othering.

CBC Massey Lectures | # 6: Asia and the Art of Storytelling

Esi Edugyan argues we are constrained by a largely white, Eurocentric idea of progress when it comes to the history of the future. African thinkers and artists suggest other realities: the Zambian Space Program, the film Black Panther, and Nnedi Okorafor's novel Lagoon, are all possible parables of the future.

CBC Massey Lectures | # 5: Africa and the Art of the Future

"To talk of transracialism instead of racial passing is, I think, to shear off its past of darkness, of illicitness," argues Esi Edugyan. Transracialism implies that we've gone beyond the limiting values of racial passing, allowing us to define for ourselves what our race is. So where do our rights to define ourselves begin and end?

CBC Massey Lectures | # 4: America and the Art of Empathy — The Post-Racial Society

"We all construct our own identities," Esi Edugyan says in her third Massey Lecture, "but we all understand, sooner or later, the limits of doing so​ — ​that there are ways in which our practical, economic, and physical realities are fixed." She explores how people who “pass” as Black complicate our understanding of identity.

CBC Massey Lectures | # 3: America and the Art of Empathy — What it Means to 'Pass'  

"The stories we tell about the dead act as clarifying narratives to explain what has shaped us, and what continues to make us who we are," argues Esi Edugyan in her second Massey Lecture. However, she asks: who is being forgotten and why? When some histories are forgotten, we all lose. Recovering our ghosts is a way of redressing the narrative.

CBC Massey Lectures | # 2: Canada and the Art of Ghosts

Black subjects in European art are generally marginal figures, but even as such, they tell a rich tale about cultural assumptions. "To look at a portrait is to be forced to build a human life out of our own imaginations," says Massey lecturer Esi Edugyan. Art can both freeze a narrative and remove ambiguity, but it can also suggest layers of perhaps unintended meaning.

CBC Massey Lectures | # 1: Europe and the Art of Seeing

Ultranationalism requires an enemy. In Poland, that means sexual minorities. Municipalities across the country are passing anti-LGBT measures. But activists are fighting back, despite the legal odds and the physical violence.

Landscape of Disgrace

Lloyd Percival was arguably Canada's most successful coach. He helped revolutionize the way hockey was played around the world but was rejected by the NHL establishment. This two-part series examines the life and legacy of Percival the man, the coach — and the legend he helped build around himself.

Lloyd Percival: Canada's Sports Prophet, Part Two

IDEAS is a deep-dive into contemporary thought and intellectual history. No topic is off-limits. In the age of clickbait and superficial headlines, it's for people who like to think.

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