What on Earth is Going on?
Kanal-Details
What on Earth is Going on?
Your weekly podcast for a world in flux. Globalization and climate change. The rise of social media and the decline and fall of Blockbuster Video. AI and VR. Donald Trump and Flat Earthers. The world is changing so fast that we can't get a grip on how we got here, let alone where we're headed....
Neueste Episoden
100 Episoden
...with the new novel, Seven by Farzana Doctor (Ep. 101)
Farzana Doctor's new novel, Seven, juggles family, history, culture, and the incredible weight of those forces on women today. It's a detective story...
...after 99 Episodes (Ep. 100)
It's been over two years since host Ben Charland kicked off this podcast in a basement in Kingston, Ontario. After nearly 100 fascinating conversation...
...with Changing Cities (Ep. 99)
The one thing that doesn't change about cities is the fact that they are constantly changing. Most people now live in cities, transforming them with t...
...with Creativity, Music and Politics during COVID-19 (Ep. 98)
The coronavirus pandemic is altering our lives in ways we cannot yet comprehend, and in decades we will marvel at this transformative time. COVID-19 i...
...with Kingston WritersFest (Ep. 97)
What makes a book interesting? Beautiful? Provocative? Necessary? Is reading still the best way to get a message across and tell a good story, and how...
...with Disability (Ep. 96)
We will all encounter disability in our lives, either ourselves or someone we know and love. What is our responsibility when that happens? What role s...
...with Rebuilding Democracy (Ep. 95)
What if being a Member of Parliament or Congress had nothing to do with an election, but rather worked like jury duty? What if our officials were seat...
...with Writing Biography (Ep. 94)
Rosemary Sullivan is an acclaimed Canadian poet and biographer. She has written definitive biographies about Elizabeth Smart and Gwendolyn MacEwen as...
...with Politics and its Future (Ep. 93)
Kent Hehr is a former federal Liberal cabinet minister and member of parliament for Calgary Centre. As a so-called "recovering politician" with career...
...with Acting, Gaming and Creativity (Ep. 92)
Aurora Browne is one of Canada's national treasures. Best known as one of the cast members of the Baroness von Sketch Show and as co-host of the Great...
...with the Writing Process, Genre, and the Rise of Stupid (Ep. 91)
What does it take to write a novel? What about genre? How does marketing define the books we read before we even open the first page? What does it mea...
...with Writing Novels (Ep. 90)
Elizabeth Hay is a Giller Prize-winning author of novels such as Late Nights on Air, His Whole Life, and Alone in the Classroom. Most recently, she pu...
...with Generations and the Ethical Choice to Have Children (Ep. 89)
Is dividing people up by their generation (Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, etc.) unhelpful and even harmful? Is it a form of ageism, along the same li...
...with Polling in Politics (Ep. 88)
One of the key features of the democratic process is opinion polling, whether it is leader likability or attitudes on various issues. But do these sna...
...with the Power of Names (Ep. 87)
Do our names shape our destiny? What does it mean to live life as Don as opposed to Donald or Donnie? What prejudices do we carry with our names and t...
...with Political Philosophy (Ep. 86)
Humans are living longer, delaying disease and decay later and later. It's conceivable that we could eradicate the big killers and attain a certain ki...
...with The Reality Bubble (Ep. 85)
Ziya Tong is "one of the world's most engaging science journalists" and after co-hosting Discovery Canada's Daily Planet television program for ten ye...
...with Guy Gavriel Kay (Ep. 84)
Guy Gavriel Kay is a bestselling, world-renowned author whose works have been translated into over 30 languages. Originally from western Canada, Guy p...
...according to the novel, Ducks, Newburyport (Ep. 83)
Lucy Ellmann's groundbreaking and award-winning novel, "Ducks, Newburyport", consists of a single sentence broken up only by the small bits of a paral...
...with Rebalancing Society (Ep. 82)
Do the problems we face today -- political gridlock, climate change, social upheaval, accelerating economic inequality -- stem from fundamental imbala...
...with Poetry (Ep. 81)
Do music and poetry share the same roots? How do you write poetry that embraces complexity, history, beauty and atrocity? How can literature confront...
...with Polygraphs, Technology and the Music of Plants (Ep. 80)
What is the future of technology, and what does it take to be a real lifelong innovator at the ground level? Ben's guest is James Brown, a serial entr...
...with Theatre (Ep. 79)
Live theatre is one of the oldest art forms, but rather than fade away in the face of easy social media and instant entertainment, it is experiencing...
...with Politics in the US and Canada (Ep. 78)
Rampant and increasing polarization of our politics? The turn to populism as a result of economic inequality? The growing, scarcely regulated politica...
...with Gambling (Ep. 77)
We can't seem to talk about gambling without reference to its very real, very serious social problems -- whether it's the association with organized c...
...with Elections (Ep. 76)
What makes an election work? Is it the technology aggregates our preferences? Is it trust that our choices will be fairly counted, that they have an i...
...with Being and Becoming Indigenous (Ep. 75)
Some argue that all of humanity today faces an identity crisis, as we struggle with rapid change and a deteriorating habitat -- and that the solutions...
...with Gamification (Ep. 74)
We often see video games as a form of consumer entertainment—an escape from reality, not that different from watching TV or reading a book. But the st...
...with Philosophy (Ep. 73)
What is consciousness? Where does the mind reside? Can we create artificial intelligence that can fake intelligence, or maybe just have it? What happe...
...with Luck and Probability (Ep. 72)
It's Friday 13th! What does that mean? Is it an unlucky day? According to science—no, it means absolutely nothing. But there is one exception: the dat...
...with Democracy, Conversation and the Walrus (Ep. 71)
What does it mean to have a good conversation about politics, democracy, our place in the world, Donald Trump and sports? How do we bring disparate an...
...with Power, Colonialism and the San People (Ep. 70)
Is colonialism ongoing in the Kalahari Desert? What do the struggles of the San peoples tell us about democracy, tradition, adaptation to the environm...
...with the Inside of Politics (Ep. 69)
What is social media doing to our politics from the inside? Are politicians themselves getting along, or are the deep partisan divisions in our cultur...
...with Higher Education (Ep. 68)
What is the future of the university and higher education? Will the local, broad-scope, brick-and-mortar campuses that form a critical part of our soc...
...with Gender (Ep. 67)
How do we understand and engage in today's conversation about gender? What on earth is going on with gender and identity politics, and what is the per...
...with Acting and Storytelling (Ep. 66)
What does it mean to be a storyteller? What happens when we look into the mirror after a long day, let the masks drop, and come face to face with who...
...with Travel, Story and Vulnerability (Ep. 65)
How important is culture to the long-term success of an organization? What role does being vulnerable play in leadership? How does story help weave an...
...according to the novel, 1984 (Ep. 64)
George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1984) is a touchstone of 20th-century English literature and a key piece of modern political thought and specu...
...according to the book, Quiet (Ep. 63)
What does it mean to be an introvert, and is it harder in our society to keep to oneself? Is there a pressure to conform to an Extrovert Ideal? How do...
...with Creativity and Acting (Ep. 62)
What does it mean to be creative? Where does creative expression lie: in the individual, in the shared experience, or in the coming together of public...