Ideas

“Urbicide” — the intentional killing of a city — is a brutal tactic of war, designed to destroy people’s sense of home and belonging to a larger collective. But even in peacetime, architecture and urban planning can become part of a more subtle kind of war over who gets to call a city home. This is the fourth episode in our series, The Idea of Home, which originally aired on June 16, 2022.

Hospitality — and hospitals. Two words that share a root, but whose meanings often seem at odds with each other. IDEAS traces the tension between hospitality and discipline that has defined hospitals throughout their history, and what it means to create a hospitable hospital in the 21st century. The third episode in our series, The Idea of Home, which originally aired on June 15, 2022.

In ancient Greece, hospitality (or xenia) was seen as a sacred moral imperative. Today, the word xenia has largely fallen out of use, but its opposite, xenophobia, has been a driving factor in contemporary politics for years. IDEAS explores ancient traditions of hospitality in this second episode of our five-part series, The Idea of Home. *This episode originally aired on June 14, 2022.

Several English-language literary works survive from the first millennium A.D. and it's still uncertain which is the oldest. However, a short elegy called The Wanderer stands out as English's oldest-surviving good poem, according to IDEAS producer Tom Howell. Experts in Old English help explain the appeal and the complexity of this ancient yet strangely accessible work. *This episode originally aired on March 15, 2021.

Some of us avoid exercise: why? PhysEd researcher Brian Culp says a more inclusive, less sports-oriented high school education can help. Historian Jürgen Martschukat argues that the pressure to keep fit at all comes less from us, and more from political and economic forces. *This episode originally aired on June 23, 2021.

The myth of Orpheus is the oldest love story, from ancient Greece — it's the story of the power of art, a story told through opera and film, and poetry. Two thousand five hundred years later, IDEAS contributor Tom Jokinen explores why the myth of Orpheus still has such a hold on us. *Originally aired on October 14, 2021.

The winter solstice is the longest night of the year. And that’s what makes it the perfect time to slow down, move inwards, and reflect. CBC Music's In Concert host, Paolo Pietropaolo joins Nahlah Ayed to showcase music he feels captures the spirit of the winter solstice.

Scholar Katie Hunt ties together lines of Romantic era poetry with scientific research on sleep... to reveal how our concept of insomnia evolved, and how the poems still have the power to open our minds.

In 2024, our view of the universe is going to change drastically. When the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is complete, it will be possible to produce images of the night sky that are both sharper and more wide-ranging than ever before — revolutionizing our knowledge of galaxies, according to astrophysicist Louise Edwards.

In a world that’s increasingly hostile to journalists, Bellingcat has become an internationally respected organization uncovering the truth about wrongdoing. Giancarlo Fiorella, a senior investigator with Bellingcat delivered the 2022 Peter Stursberg Foreign Correspondent Lecture in an event moderated by IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed.