Big Ideas

Published Date: 09/26/2009 | Length: 54:50 | Views: 537
Panelists John Ralston Saul, Naomi Klein, Margaret MacMillan and Adam Gopnik reflect on what constitutes a good leader.

Published Date: 09/29/2002 | Length: 38:43 | Views: 712
Alexander Wendt on why a one state world is inevitable.

Published Date: 09/27/2008 | Length: 54:50 | Views: 538
Benjamin Barber explains how the ideal of people as citizens has been undermined by the drive to turn us all into consumers.

Published Date: 04/18/2009 | Length: 50:23 | Views: 530
Philosopher-journalist, Bernard-Henri Levy, discusses the themes of his book "Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism".

Published Date: 12/13/2008 | Length: 42:35 | Views: 2359
Jordan Peterson discusses the nature of evil and its distinction from tragedy.

Published Date: 11/29/2008 | Length: 55:56 | Views: 616
Mark Federman's lecture "No Educator Left Behind" examines the impact of student connectivity via the internet on University education.

Length: 16:11 | Views: 353
Q %26 A following the Camille Paglia lecture.

Published Date: 11/07/2009 | Length: 51:18 | Views: 477
Controversial academic, Camille Paglia, defends religion in a lecture delivered at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Published Date: 10/03/2009 | Length: 54:54 | Views: 1802
Avowed atheist Christopher Hitchens critiques The Ten Commandments in a lecture delivered at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Published Date: 02/07/2009 | Length: 51:52 | Views: 889
Professor and author, David Weinberger, looks at the impact of the internet on how we learn and what we know.

Published Date: 05/23/2009 | Length: 54:27 | Views: 1550
The author of Grown Up Digital, Don Tapscott, discusses how the internet has changed the way people learn and suggests ways to tap into that Net Generation expertise.

Published Date: 06/08/2003 | Length: 36:13 | Views: 114
Elizabeth Abbott on her book A History of Mistresses.

Published Date: 02/15/2003 | Length: 28:38 | Views: 105
Francis S. Collins on The Genome and Your Future Part 1

Published Date: 10/25/2008 | Length: 54:17 | Views: 2371
Dr. Gabor Mate, author of "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction", discusses how the medical and legal systems are failing in the so called "war on drugs".

Published Date: 05/30/2009 | Length: 54:53 | Views: 494
Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of The Upside of Down, and Chris Turner, author of The Geography of Hope, are featured in Part 1 of "Talking about the Planet".

Published Date: 05/31/2009 | Length: 48:40 | Views: 195
J.B. Mackinnon and Alisa Smith, co-authors of The 100-Mile Diet, and Adria Vasil, author of Ecoholic, are featured in Part 2 of "Talking about the Planet".

Published Date: 05/09/2009 | Length: 1:11:05 | Views: 2341
Journalist and historian, Gwynne Dyer, discusses his book Climate Wars.

Published Date: 12/08/2007 | Length: 53:33 | Views: 215
What killed the dinosaurs? And is humanity headed for a similar fate? These questions are addressed by H. Jay Melosh, a Professor of Theoretical Geophysics at the University of Arizona, in this lecture entitled, Death of the Dinos.

Published Date: 01/23/2010 | Length: 56:11 | Views: 306
Author Harold Kushner on his latest book Conquering Fear.

Published Date: 04/25/2009 | Length: 46:35 | Views: 177
In her lecture, "Belonging to Britain", Hazel Carby looks at the historic relationship between England and Jamaica, including the history of the slave trade in Bristol.

Published Date: 03/22/2003 | Length: 34:55 | Views: 305
Janice Stein on the ethics of responsibility and accountability.

Published Date: 11/19/2006 | Length: 46:49 | Views: 362
Imagine someone saying that they are terrified by the claim that there cannot be a mathematical theory of everything. Janna Levin is such a person. She is a physicist who writes fictionalized accounts of great and suffering mathematicians.

Published Date: 02/14/2009 | Length: 50:18 | Views: 272
Jean Bethke Elshtain presents the Seymour Martin Lipset lecture "Religion and Democracy: Antagonists or Allies?"

Published Date: 11/10/2002 | Length: 30:11 | Views: 197
John Polanyi on the world that science has built.

Published Date: 05/16/2009 | Length: 55:53 | Views: 1195
John Ralston Saul discusses the themes of his latest book, A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada.

Published Date: 10/10/2009 | Length: 53:56 | Views: 1285
Lawrence Krauss is a professor in the Department of Physics at Arizona State University. His lecture is entitled Life, the Universe and Nothing.

Published Date: 11/08/2008 | Length: 26:01 | Views: 252
Leanne Simpson of Athabasca University's Centre for World Indigenous Knowledge and Research delivers a lecture.

Published Date: 05/02/2009 | Length: 43:24 | Views: 666
Leo Panitch delivers this year's Phyllis Clarke Memorial Lecture entitled "Still a Marxist After All: Lessons and Insights for our Time".

Published Date: 10/17/2009 | Length: 51:19 | Views: 575
Leonard Mlodinow, of the California Institute of Technology discusses his book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.

Published Date: 01/24/2009 | Length: 44:09 | Views: 916
Lewis Lapham laments the state of the American education system and gradual disappearance of historical consciousness.

Published Date: 11/14/2009 | Length: 54:53 | Views: 272
Lords of Finance author discusses global economic crises.

Published Date: 01/10/2009 | Length: 55:56 | Views: 493
Preeminent author, Margaret Atwood, delivers the 2008 Massey Lecture, "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth".

Published Date: 09/28/2003 | Length: 49:11 | Views: 192
Margaret MacMillan on her book Paris 1919.

Published Date: 12/20/2008 | Length: 52:27 | Views: 362
Author Margaret Visser discusses the themes in her latest book "The Gift of Thanks".

Published Date: 11/01/2008 | Length: 55:56 | Views: 1704
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.

Published Date: 01/31/2009 | Length: 50:30 | Views: 296
Maude Barlow delivers Carleton University's 2008 Florence Bird Lecture, "Water: The Most Pressing Women's Issue of All?"

Published Date: 10/31/2009 | Length: 51:33 | Views: 144
Professor Michael Marrus on the 1895 libel trial of Oscar Wilde.

Published Date: 11/01/2009 | Length: 55:48 | Views: 106
Professor Michael Marrus on the Moscow Show Trials and the 1945 Nuremberg Trials.

Published Date: 11/21/2009 | Length: 53:47 | Views: 729
Dr. Michael Shermer on Why People Believe Weird Things.

Published Date: 04/27/2003 | Length: 48:18 | Views: 246
Niall Ferguson on his book Empire.

Published Date: 12/19/2009 | Length: 48:13 | Views: 294
English professor Nick Mount on Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot".

Published Date: 02/01/2003 | Length: 1:00:27 | Views: 396
Noam Chomsky on international policy continuity in the wake of 9-11.

Published Date: 06/28/2008 | Length: 55:21 | Views: 845
Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and best-selling author, Dr. Norman Doidge, delivers the keynote address at a University of Toronto interdisciplinary symposium on "Altered States of Mind".

Published Date: 10/18/2008 | Length: 53:49 | Views: 301
Ovide Mercredi, chief of the Misipawistic Cree nation, reflects on what true reconciliation means and explains that it will only work if the reconciliation process engages the First Nations peoples as equal partners.

Published Date: 01/09/2010 | Length: 55:05 | Views: 263
Peter Diamandis lecture: The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Invent it Yourself!

Published Date: 11/15/2008 | Length: 56:40 | Views: 639
Author and professor, Richard Florida, delivers an engaging lecture on his theories about the creative class and its impact on society.

Published Date: 10/24/2009 | Length: 48:05 | Views: 185
Richard Leakey is best known for his paleontological work in Africa. His lecture, entitled Climate Change and the Future of Life on Earth deals with wildlife conservation.

Published Date: 12/12/2009 | Length: 1:19:10 | Views: 176
Discussion of the Booker Prize winning novel Mister Pip.

Published Date: 11/16/2003 | Length: 43:25 | Views: 57
Robert Fulford presents his 2003 lecture A World Reconfigured: Politics and Perceptions Since 9/11

Published Date: 11/22/2008 | Length: 53:38 | Views: 488
Ron Deibert, Director of The Citizen Lab, explores internet censorship and surveillance around the world.

Published Date: 11/08/2008 | Length: 34:52 | Views: 412
Ronald Wright, the author of "What Is America?: A Short History of the New World Order", examines the dichotomy between "America's ideals and the realities".

Published Date: 02/09/2008 | Length: 55:38 | Views: 146
State building in Afghanistan is the focus of this lecture by Rory Stewart, a former Coalition Deputy Governor in southern Iraq.

Published Date: 10/11/2008 | Length: 51:55 | Views: 491
Psychology professor Salman Akhtar discusses how immigration can affect a person's mental health in his lecture entitled "The Trauma of Geophysical Dislocation".

Published Date: 03/22/2003 | Length: 53:24 | Views: 114
Saskia Sassen on citizenship in the age of globalization.

Published Date: 01/30/2010 | Length: 51:40 | Views: 100
Sean B. Carroll lecture: Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species.

Published Date: 11/28/2009 | Length: 48:36 | Views: 162
Shel Israel on his book Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighbourhoods.

Published Date: 04/12/2003 | Length: 59:15 | Views: 358
Steven Pinker on his book The Blank Slate.

Published Date: 10/04/2008 | Length: 36:44 | Views: 83
Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution, outlines ways in which the U.S. will need to embrace multilateralism if it is to be an effective player in the future of global governance.

Published Date: 12/06/2008 | Length: 55:21 | Views: 697
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.

Published Date: 02/15/2004 | Length: 50:20 | Views: 77
Thomas King on stories and the Native Canadian experience.

Published Date: 02/21/2009 | Length: 51:35 | Views: 471
"Talking Rubbish" with Toby Miller, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

Published Date: 01/17/2009 | Length: 52:42 | Views: 1779
Internationally renowned author and philosopher, Umberto Eco, gives "An Illustrated Presentation on the History of Beauty and Ugliness", based on his two recent books "On Beauty" and "On Ugliness".

Published Date: 01/16/2010 | Length: 55:33 | Views: 248
Anthropologist and author, Wade Davis, delivers the 2009 Massey Lecture The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World.

Published Date: 09/20/2008 | Length: 55:48 | Views: 307
William D. Phillips, who works with the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, demonstrates the cooling potential of liquid nitrogen.

Published Date: 04/29/2007 | Length: 53:27 | Views: 157
Some ideas travel well. To do so they must be both complex and simple at the same time. Ecological footprint is such an idea. William Rees, an environmental economist from the University of British Columbia is responsible for it.