Shows / Big Ideas
Big Ideas
Your front row seat to big thinkers at the best live events, forums, and festivals. Feed your mind. Be provoked. One big idea at a time. Your brain will love you for it. We love hearing from you about the show or events you are planning. Get in touch! Email: Bigideas@abc.net.au SMS line for ABC Radio National: 0418 226 576 Airs Monday to Thursday 8pm, repeated Tuesday to Friday 12pm, on ABC Radio National.
Episodes
Big IdeasFrom vulture bone flutes to ‘organised sound’— Andrew Ford's short history of music
Music has been around for at least as long as humans, and possibly even longer. How have forces like religion, the economy, society and technology, shaped…
- Big Ideas
If it bleeds it leads – Bruce Shapiro on documenting the violence of modern life
From wars with global consequences to violent crimes in the suburbs, trauma underpins so much of the news cycle. It’s something award-winning journalist Bruce…
- Big Ideas
Live to 150? David Sinclair on why we age — and why he thinks we don't have to
What if we could turn back time on our biological clock and slow down — even reverse — aging? High profile Harvard scientist David Sinclair is co-author of the…
Big IdeasAustralia and the spectre of war — from Vietnam to today
It's been 60 years since then Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies sent Australians to fight in the Vietnam War. Since that time, the defence force has…
Big IdeasAustralia votes — what message should we take from this election result?
If democracy is the will of the people, what does this federal election result say about Australia? In his election night victory speech, Prime Minister…
Big IdeasWhat 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…
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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…
Big IdeasHistory 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…
- Big Ideas
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…
Big IdeasVladimir 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…
- Big Ideas
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…
- Big Ideas
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…