Ideas CBC Radio

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.

Science writer and scholar Britt Wray specializes in the mental health impacts of the ecological crisis. Her new book, Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis, shares productive ways to cope, think, and act while facing an anxious ecological present and uncertain future.

Richard Wright was the biggest name in Black American literature in the 1940s. He fell out of favour, in part the result of critiques by James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison. But a recent publication of a Wright manuscript has led to a re-evaluation of his legacy and enduring relevance.

17-century artist Artemisia Gentileschi upended traditional depictions of women in her paintings by creating gutsy, strong female figures. With her paintbrush as in her life, she fought gender inequality and helped to reimagine womanhood and what it could mean to be a female artist.

Failure. It's the worst. Or is it? In the last decade, efforts to reframe failure have pushed it to the surface of popular culture. People like Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Oprah Winfrey are all hawking failure as the secret to 21st-century success. Was Samuel Beckett right: fail again, fail better? *This episode originally aired on Dec. 15, 2021.

Early on in his coverage of COVID, journalist Ed Yong realized it was more than just a science story — it was an omni-crisis. His journalism focuses on exposing the cracks in society exacerbated by the pandemic. He delivered this lecture as part of the Lind Initiative Future of the Media series at the University of British Columbia in April 2022.