Big Ideas

Panelists John Ralston Saul, Naomi Klein, Margaret MacMillan and Adam Gopnik reflect on what constitutes a good leader.

Alexander Wendt on why a one state world is inevitable.

Benjamin Barber explains how the ideal of people as citizens has been undermined by the drive to turn us all into consumers.

Philosopher-journalist, Bernard-Henri Levy, discusses the themes of his book "Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism".

Jordan Peterson discusses the nature of evil and its distinction from tragedy.

Mark Federman's lecture "No Educator Left Behind" examines the impact of student connectivity via the internet on University education.

Q & A following the Camille Paglia lecture.

Controversial academic, Camille Paglia, defends religion in a lecture delivered at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Avowed atheist Christopher Hitchens critiques The Ten Commandments in a lecture delivered at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Professor and author, David Weinberger, looks at the impact of the internet on how we learn and what we know.

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.

Elizabeth Abbott on her book A History of Mistresses.

Francis S. Collins on The Genome and Your Future Part 1

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".

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".

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".

Journalist and historian, Gwynne Dyer, discusses his book Climate Wars.

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.

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.

Janice Stein on the ethics of responsibility and accountability.

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.

Jean Bethke Elshtain presents the Seymour Martin Lipset lecture "Religion and Democracy: Antagonists or Allies?"

John Polanyi on the world that science has built.

John Ralston Saul discusses the themes of his latest book, A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada.

Lawrence Krauss is a professor in the Department of Physics at Arizona State University. His lecture is entitled Life, the Universe and Nothing.

Leanne Simpson of Athabasca University's Centre for World Indigenous Knowledge and Research delivers a lecture.

Leo Panitch delivers this year's Phyllis Clarke Memorial Lecture entitled "Still a Marxist After All: Lessons and Insights for our Time".

Leonard Mlodinow, of the California Institute of Technology discusses his book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.

Lewis Lapham laments the state of the American education system and gradual disappearance of historical consciousness.

Lords of Finance author discusses global economic crises.

Preeminent author, Margaret Atwood, delivers the 2008 Massey Lecture, "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth".

Margaret MacMillan on her book Paris 1919.

Author Margaret Visser discusses the themes in her latest book "The Gift of Thanks".

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.

Maude Barlow delivers Carleton University's 2008 Florence Bird Lecture, "Water: The Most Pressing Women's Issue of All?"

Professor Michael Marrus on the 1895 libel trial of Oscar Wilde.

Professor Michael Marrus on the Moscow Show Trials and the 1945 Nuremberg Trials.

Niall Ferguson on his book Empire.

Noam Chomsky on international policy continuity in the wake of 9-11.

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".

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.

Author and professor, Richard Florida, delivers an engaging lecture on his theories about the creative class and its impact on society.

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.

Robert Fulford presents his 2003 lecture A World Reconfigured: Politics and Perceptions Since 9/11

Ron Deibert, Director of The Citizen Lab, explores internet censorship and surveillance around the world.

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".

State building in Afghanistan is the focus of this lecture by Rory Stewart, a former Coalition Deputy Governor in southern Iraq.

Psychology professor Salman Akhtar discusses how immigration can affect a person's mental health in his lecture entitled "The Trauma of Geophysical Dislocation".

Saskia Sassen on citizenship in the age of globalization.

Steven Pinker on his book The Blank Slate.

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.

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.

Thomas King on stories and the Native Canadian experience.

"Talking Rubbish" with Toby Miller, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

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".

William D. Phillips, who works with the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, demonstrates the cooling potential of liquid nitrogen.

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.