Big Ideas

ABC listen

4.4 (63)
SOCIETY & CULTURE
UPDATED DAILY

Feed your mind. Be provoked. One big idea at a time. Your brain will love you for it. Grab your front row seat to the best live forums and festivals with Natasha Mitchell.

1D AGO

What are you wearing? Why we aren’t buying Australian made fashion

Australians are now the biggest consumers per capita of clothes in the world. But just three per cent of clothing is made here in Australia. So is it time for a fashion rethink? This event was held at the Melbourne Museum as part of Melbourne Fashion Festival's Fashion Talks program on 4 March 2025. Speakers Tara MosesChief Operating Officer, RM Williams Sarah SheridanCo-founder, Clothing the Gaps Amy GallagherCo-founder, Kloke Juanita PageFounder, Joseph and James Jaana Quaintance-James (host)Chief Executive Officer, Australian Fashion Council

54 min
2D AGO

Mark Zuckerberg claims corporations are culturally neutered — are they? Men, women, work, and the manosphere

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has said “a lot of the corporate world has become culturally neutered” and that it needs more “masculine energy”? Has it and does it? At Meta, he recently shut down initiatives that promote equity and diversity in his workplace. In the USA, so has Ford, Mcdonalds, Walmart, and the Trump administration. But in Australia, less than 5% of CEOs in private companies are women and the gender pay gap is slow to budge. Meanwhile, future male leaders are being courted online by manosphere influencers like Andrew Tate. Where is all this heading? Join Natasha Mitchell and guests to consider the consequences for modern workplaces. This event was produced by the 2025 Sorrento Writers Festival curated by festival director and founder Corrie Perkin. Speakers Catherine Fox AMAward-winning journalist, author, presenter, and commentator on women in the workforceAuthor, Breaking the Boss Bias: How to Get More Women Into Leadership (2024) and Stop Fixing Women (2017)Josh BornsteinLawyer specialising in employment and labour-relations law. Author, Working for the Brand: How Corporations are Destroying Free Speech (2024).

54 min
3D AGO

History lessons — historians Orlando Figes, Bettany Hughes, Matthew Longo and Dava Sobel with Annabelle Quince

Democracies in retreat, attacks on science, border disputes, death and destruction. It can feel like we are living in unprecedented times - but here's the thing: world history has a habit of repeating itself. So what lessons does history teach us about this moment in which we find ourselves? Do we humans learn anything from the past, or are we destined to repeat the same mistakes? This event was recorded at Adelaide Writers' Week on 5 May 2025. Speakers Orlando FigesHistorian of Russia and EuropeEmeritus Professor of History at the University of LondonAuthor, The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia and many more Bettany HughesClassical historian, writer, broadcasterAuthor, Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, Venus and Aphrodite: history of a goddess and many morePresenter, Bettany Hughes' Lost Worlds: The Nabataeans (SBS) Matthew LongoPolitical scientistAuthor, The Politics of Borders: Sovereignty, Security, and the Citizen after 9/11, The Picnic: A dream of freedom and the collapse of the Iron Curtain (Winner of the 2024 Orwell Prize for political writing)Assistant Professor of Political Science, Leiden University (The Netherlands) Dava SobelScience writer and historianAuthor, Longitude, Galileo's Daughter, The Elements of Marie Curie and many more Annabelle Quince (host)Host, Rear Vision, ABC Radio National

56 min
4D AGO

Chatting with 2025 Grammy winner Ruthie Foster

After five nominations, Ruthie Foster has taken home the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album - affirming her status as an American music legend. In this intimate conversation, she shares what made her want to be a singer; the roles of her grandmother and mother in her life; why faith is so important to her and why she wants to sing about real people. And much more… A Heartlands Conservation presented at the Blue Mountains Music Festival. Speakers Ruthie FosterAmerican singer-songwriter of blues and folk music. 2025 Grammy Award winner for Best Contemporary Blues Album Gregg Borschmann (host)Writer, radio producer and oral historian for the National Library of Australia

54 min
MAY 8

Vladimir Putin’s Russia — with exiled journalist and author Mikhail Zygar

The exiled founder of Russia's only independent television news channel, Mikhail Zygar, takes us inside Vladimir Putin's Russia, with a firsthand account of how the President has successfully silenced the media, opposition and Kremlin critics, to cement his hold on power. The 2025 AN Smith Lecture: Journalism against autocracy: Putin, Trump and the future of news was recorded at the University of Melbourne's Centre for Advancing Journalism on 31 March 2025. Speakers Mikhail ZygarExiled Russian journalist and commentatorFounder of Russian TV channel Rain TVAuthor, War and Punishment: The Story of Russian Oppression and Ukrainian Resistance, All the Kremlin's Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin and moreWinner, 2014 Committee to Protect Journalists International Press Freedom Award Professor Andrew DoddDirector, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne

52 min
MAY 7

Rituals, rats, and reeded vertebrae! The mysteries of Machu Picchu and Ancient Peru revealed

A story of continents crashing and cleaving apart, the making of a civilisation, the language of the dead, and ... a mummified rat makes a cameo too. The Incan empire was vast and sophisticated. It built the stunning citadel in the clouds of Machu Picchu in the Andes mountains. But within a century its people were catastrophically wiped out by the onslaught of the Spanish conquistadors. Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell with two intrepid researchers — an archaeologist and a leading mammalogist — to hear what amazing discoveries continue to be made in Peru and South America. Thanks to the Australian Museum for hosting and producing this event. Speakers Professor Kris HelgenChief ScientistDirector of the Australian Museum Research InstituteAustralian Museum Dr Jacob BongersArchaeologist University of Sydney Further information: Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires exhibition Assembling the dead: human vertebrae-on-posts in the Chincha Valley, PeruPainting personhood: Red pigment practices in southern Peru

53 min
MAY 6

Mental ill-health and the power of words

The language used to talk about mental ill-health can play a key role in reducing or enforcing stigma. And it's constantly evolving. But what terms should be used and when? And by whom? The wrong word can not only deeply hurt a person's feelings. It can end careers, destroy relationships, cut access to support systems. This special World Mental Health Day PsychTalks event was presented by the Mental Ill-Health Stigma Researchers Australia Network (MISRA), the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, and the Melbourne School of Global and Population Health, with the support of SANE’s StigmaWatch program. Speakers Professor Nicola ReavleyPrincipal Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health Dr Michelle BlanchardChief Executive Officer of VANISH, Honorary Senior Fellow in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne Professor Nick HaslamProfessor of Psychology, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences Fay JacksonGeneral Manager of Inclusion at Flourish Australia Sandy JeffsAuthor and poet, advocate in the mental health system for many years Dr Chris Groot (host)Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne

53 min
MAY 5

Worried about the future? A mosquito could help you to live in the present

What can a mosquito teach us about time? Noone likes a mosquito bite — but for a brief moment when it stings you, you know you are alive. Humans are temporal beings, but across cultures, our concepts of time are vastly different. This event explores what we can learn from science, philosophy and Indigenous perspectives that can alter experiences of and attitudes to time, to make better decisions for the future. This event was recorded at the Sophia Club in London on 17 October 2024. Speakers Richard FisherAuthor, The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees TimeSenior editor, Aeon Media Ande SombyYoik singerAssociate Professor of Law, The Arctic University of Norway Brigid Hains (host)Editorial director, Aeon Media

54 min

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4.4

out of 5

63 Ratings

Great Podcast

06/30/2021

rromarrio

Great topics. Mind provoking. Always insightful. I enjoy it daily…
Eclectic, Cosmopolitan yet very Aussie

07/27/2019

Cozzum

A true treasure from down under to help fill in some of the gaps in my understanding of how the world works. Somehow life got very complex along the way and keeping up with the barrage of changes is a monumental chore at times. I never dreamed that discussions, lectures, debates and so on, from half way around the world, would help keep me oriented towards a realistic perspective on the world's events and issues. Recommended for anyone who craves something more from somewhere else. Many Thanks to all the staff who make this program possible. To speak in the parlance of the zeitgeist "You're Awesome!"
Deep dive into Woke ideology

01/21/2021

Ogilbeats

There are some scientifically rigorous and interesting talks, but most speakers chosen are aimed at getting all the brownie points from the far left identity politics movement. How we must now focus on “age-ist discrimination” has been the straw that’s broken the camels back for me.
Big Ideas

06/06/2019

ABC Radiio USA Fan

Excellent as always Paul Barclay and his team are thoughtful, careful investigators who listen and ask good questions bringing important truths to Australian listeners Thank goodness for the ABC Truly wonderful

Feed your mind. Be provoked. One big idea at a time. Your brain will love you for it. Grab your front row seat to the best live forums and festivals with Natasha Mitchell.