Episodes
Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry.
Published 09/07/13
Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great, on The Three New Commandments.
Published 08/24/13
Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
Published 08/10/13
Hazel Carby looks at the historic relationship between England and Jamaica, including the history of the slave trade in Bristol and the complex question of identity for those of mixed British and West Indian heritage.
Published 07/27/13
Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie.
Published 07/13/13
Thomas Merritt, Canada Research Chair in Genomics and Bio-informatics at Laurentian University 19s department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, on the extent to which our genetic makeup is responsible for our talents and aptitudes.
Published 07/03/13
The editor of Skeptic Magazine, Michael Shermer, delivers a lecture on his book Why People Believe Weird Things.
Published 06/29/13
Michael Fullan of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education delivers a lecture entitled Schools in Need of Re-Education
Published 06/22/13
Christopher Hitchens voices his opinion on the subject of the Hart House Debating Club debate: Be it resolved: Freedom of speech includes the freedom to hate.
Published 06/15/13
Michael Ruse is professor of the philosophy of biology at Florida State University. In this lecture he addresses the question Is Darwinism Past its Sell-by Date?
Published 06/01/13
Daniel Gottesman of the Perimeter Institute discusses quantum computing and the cryptographic protocols that use quantum physics, and that one day will protect all that which we would want to stay secret.
Published 05/18/13
Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the 1964 novel Herzog by Saul Bellow.
Published 05/18/13
The author of Struck by Lightning - and the statistician who crunched the numbers to reveal that a statistically improbable number of lottery retailers were winning major prizes in Ontario - Jeffrey Rosenthal guides us through the maze of numbers and percentages to show us to how calculate correct probabilities.
Published 05/04/13
Simon Winchester on his book A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906.
Published 04/27/13
Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel No Great Mischief by Alastair MacLeod.
Published 04/20/13
Janna Levin on her book Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, the story of two great mathematicians, Kurt Godel and Alan Turing. They were men who had the capacity to think about the most abstract of mathematical truths but had very limited abilities when it came to confronting the mundane aspects of life. Both committed suicide.
Published 04/20/13
Kevin Dutton on his book The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success.
Published 04/13/13
Robert Adams, author of A Love of Reading, discusses the novel The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.
Published 04/06/13
Nima Arkani-Hamed on the Large Hadron Collider and the Future of Fundamental Physics. Located on the Swiss-French border, the Large Hadron Collider is a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference. It will allow physicists to probe the constituent parts of the proton, looking for new forms of matter and insights into the formation of the universe.
Published 04/06/13
Salmon Akhtar on The Trauma of Geographical Dislocation, how immigration can affect a person's mental health.
Published 03/23/13
Ecological footprint is an idea originated by William Rees, an environmental economist from the University of British Columbia. If you need a primer in environmental economics, this lecture is for you.
Published 03/23/13
Harvard University psychology professor, Steven Pinker, dicusses his book The Blank Slate.
Published 03/16/13
Marc Abrahams, editor of The Annals of Improbably Research and one of the organizers of the annual Ig-Nobel Prize ceremonies at Harvard University, discusses the work of scientists and academics that, "first makes you laugh, and then makes you think".
Published 03/09/13
Maude Barlow, National Chair of the citizens' advocacy organization The Council of Canadians, on Water: The Most Pressing Women's Issue of All.
Published 03/02/13
Ken Cramer - Psychology, University of Windsor -on Alfred Adler: The Most Famous Personality Theorist You Likely Never Heard Of
Published 02/23/13