IDEAS for the week of November 4

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IDEAS airs Monday to Friday on CBC Radio One
at 8 p.m. (8:30 p.m. NT) and 4 a.m. (4:30 a.m. NT)

The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington was a historic moment. Almost four years later, the country remains deeply polarized, and some experts believe similar violence could happen again. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4

The End of America

The United States is at a turning point and experts say the country hasn't been this divided since the Civil War. Some are predicting the end of American democracy, while others claim the potential for political violence looms. In this episode first broadcast in 2022, IDEAS contributor Melissa Gismondi unpacks the idea that America is ending, explores where the country might be headed and what — if anything — can save it. *This episode originally aired on Sept. 29, 2022.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5

The Genious of Various Animals

Have you ever looked down at your beloved family dog and thought: what on earth is she thinking? Alexandra Horowitz certainly has. She's the author of Inside of a Dog and a senior research fellow at Barnard College. In 2018, Horowitz joined fellow authors and scientists at the Aspen Ideas Festival, a forum for values-based leadership and the exchange of ideas, to speak about the theme of animal cognition. Hear excerpts from The Mysterious Mind of the Dog and The Genius of Birds. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 5, 2021.

PLEASE NOTE: *The 8 p.m. radio broadcast of this episode is pre-empted for the U.S. election results, with the exception of the Atlantic time zone.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

To wonder is to marvel. More than 2,000 years ago, someone sat down and drafted a list of what was deemed to be the seven wonders of antiquity. At the time, it was a kind of bucket list for ancient travellers — the most awe-inspiring structures that epitomized human imagination and ambition. From the Pyramid of Giza to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, historian Bettany Hughes shares her enthusiasm for the monumental achievements brought into existence by ancient cultures. This onstage conversation was recorded at the Toronto Reference Library.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7

"Escaping Thought Prisons," with Miglena Todorva and Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing addressed Canadian audiences with her CBC Massey Lectures in 1985, using the opportunity to warn us against groupthink and what she called the intellectual “prisons we choose to live inside.” Now, a response from the present day: Miglena Todorova reflects on Lessing’s message and puts it into the context of today’s politics, as well as Todorova’s own upbringing in socialist Bulgaria. This conversation between Todorova and the words of Doris Lessing took place in front of a live audience at Massey College in Toronto, as part of the institution’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8

In Their Own Voices: What Came After

There is no shortage of war stories in Canada’s history, but far less in the way of oral history that encompasses the vast terrain of what becomes of veterans after war. Michael Petrou, a former war correspondent and now historian of veterans’ experience at the Canadian War Museum, interviewed more than 200 veterans of all of Canada’s wars or members of their families. The initiative, called In Their Own Voices, explores the profound changes that come after veterans return home — the idea that even when wars end, they go on, changing the people who fought them, their families, and society at large.

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Historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez traces the history of white evangelical power and their influence on American culture in her book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. (Liveright Publishing/Deborah Hoag)

IDEAS IN THE AFTERNOON

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4 at 2 p.m.

Exclusion, coercion, and MAGA politics: The story of white evangelicals in America

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election might have been a surprise to some. But to historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, it was the latest chapter in a long relationship between white American masculinity and evangelical Christianity. As the 2024 election approaches, Du Mez shares how exclusion, patriarchy, and Christian nationalism are the basis for the evangelical church.