Ideas

A hundred years from now the planet will have 3-billion more people to feed. Global food security expert Evan Fraser considers possible solutions by contrasting two distinct visions of utopia -- one found through embracing science and technology, and the other arguing for overthrow of capitalism.

Deregulation. Infinite growth. Self-correcting markets. All are hallmarks of neoliberal thinking. But they're more than just assumptions about the economy. They undergird much of the most influential thinking about governance right now, and dominate political and economic thinking everywhere. The results, according to some, have been disastrous. Investigative journalist Bruce Livesey asks four experts about the rise and rule of neoliberal thought, and what it may mean for societies around the world.

Theatre artist Jani Lauzon, documentary filmmaker James Cullingham, and CBC host and journalism teacher Duncan McCue discuss the realities of working in teams with Indigenous and non-Indigenous professionals, and how they view the idea of collaboration in telling Indigenous stories in their fields. This panel was recorded at Ryerson University's Centre for Free Expression in Toronto in late 2018, and is moderated by writer and broadcaster Rachel Giese.

It may well be that poetry has rarely had a lower profile than it does today. It may be that poetry is simply not all that relevant to a digitized, hyperconnected world in which we spend our reading hours churning through a blizzard of information. But if Robert Frost was right when he defined poetry as a "momentary stay against confusion," perhaps we need poetry today more than ever. On this month's edition of The Enright Files, conversations with poets about the role of poetry in the world today and what poets have to say to the rest of us.

Each year, up to five Killam Prizes of $100 000 each are awarded to Canadian scholars who have made "substantial and significant" contribution to their field of studies in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences or engineering. This year's five recipients come from across Canada. Their areas of study include linguistics to physics, medicine to film. Meet the five brilliant Canadian thinkers who are setting the standard for their fields both in Canada and internationally.

Now that cannabis is legal in Canada, we look at that other drug that many of us already have in our homes and use on a daily basis: alcohol. How did we start using it? How does it affect our health and society? And given the latest scientific research, should we still drink it?

Seen from today, the novelist Joseph Conrad's early 20th century views on the world, particularly on race, can be offensive. But at the same time, his observations were deeply prescient of modern times. V.S. Naipaul, who was also a harsh critic, once about how Conrad managed, a hundred years ago, to "meditate on my world, a world I recognize today"? A feature interview with Harvard historian Maya Jasanoff, who tackles that question in her acclaimed biography of Conrad.

IDEAS contributor Sean Foley explores the landscapes of Algonquin Park, Ont., which inspired Tom Thomson's work - while also examining Indigenous artists' perspectives of the same landscapes that Thomson and the Group of Seven may have missed.

Authoritarian populists have won elections across a large swath of western liberal democracies. Populist leaders have formed government through free and (mostly) fair elections by riding a wave of popular disaffection with the status quo. But once in power, these governments have gone on to dismantle the very institutions and conventions that help keep liberal democratic principles in place. So how are we to confront this paradox wherein liberal democracy serves a growing and undemocratic illiberalism? A conversation with political scientist Yascha Mounk.

Winners of the 2018 Governor General's Literary Awards address our challenge to create an original piece of writing on the theme of borders. In forms ranging from poetry to fiction and personal essay, they reflect on the idea of divisions, and on the other side, reconciliations. They'll talk about their work, read from it, and give their views on the way borders, boundaries and limits - real and imagined, psychological and political - are at work in our world and lives now. Presented by IDEAS and CBC Books, with the Canada Council for the Arts.