Monday, October 18
WHY THE MONA LISA?
What's so special about the Mona Lisa? How did this small Renaissance artwork become the one painting that even Homer Simpson would have heard of? Barbara Nichol traces its path to a unique global celebrity.

Tuesday, October 19
WACHTEL ON THE ARTS
Eleanor Wachtel talks to one of Germany's greatest living artists, Anselm Kiefer, at his studio in Paris. Kiefer's enormous paintings and sculptures deal with German history and mythology, but also memory, poetry, Judaism, and the place of the human being in the cosmos.

Wednesday, October 20
MR. JUSTICE BERGER
In 1977, a Royal Commission looking into proposals to construct a pipeline from the Arctic Ocean to Alberta recommended a ten-year moratorium on pipeline development in the Mackenzie Valley until native land claims could be settled. That was only the beginning. Paul Kennedy talks with the head of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, justice Thomas Berger.

Thursdsay, October 21
WALKING AT THE EDGE OF REASON AND AWE
Reason has been a blessing for humanity, but often at the cost of dulling our ability to appreciate the ineffable - that dimension of human experience that evokes wonder and awe. Frank Faulk seeks a balance between reason and the ineffable.

Friday, October 22
THE ORIGINS OF THE MODERN PUBLIC, Part 7
Publicity was once the exclusive property of men of rank. They alone, by virtue of their stations, could make things public. During the 18th century it became meaningful to talk about "public opinion" as something formed outside the state. Today anyone with a Twitter account can make a public. In this series IDEAS producer David Cayley examines how publics were formed in Europe, between 1500 and 1700, and how these early publics grew into the concept of "the public" that we hold today.