May 28
THE FOUR SEASONS OF MAVIS GALLANT
Mavis Gallant has written dozens of dazzling, sardonic, heart-breaking short stories. She is acknowledged as a master of the short-story and has been showered with honours. Yet she is not well known in her home country - Canada.  Now in her 90th year, she still lives in the same small Parisian apartment she moved into almost 50 years ago. Rome-based writer and journalist Megan Williams spent almost a week with Gallant in Paris, recording material for her documentary portrait:  "The Four Seasons of Mavis Gallant."

Listen to The Four Seasons of Mavis Gallant


June

June 4
THE MUNK DEBATES
The Munk Debates convenes four influential Europeans to tackle the resolution: Be it resolved the European experiment has failed. Arguing for the resolution are: Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University; and Josef Joffe,  publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, TIME and Newsweek. Arguing against the resolution are Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who rose to public prominence as a leader of student revolts in France in the 1960s and is now a highly influential voice in Europe serving as the co-president of the Greens/Free European Alliance Group in the European Parliament; and Peter Mandelson, a Member of the House of Lords, and Chairman of Global Counsel, a strategic advisory firm. The Munk Debate will be recorded in Toronto on Friday, May 25. For tickets and further information, please visit The Munk Debates website.

June 11 & 18
THE RED BOOK, Part 1 & 2
Bound in red-leather, a hand-written and vividly illustrated manuscript by Carl Jung documents what he called his "confrontation with the unconscious," beginning around World War I. It was, he claimed, the source of all his later thinking in psychology. But the extent of his dreams, fantasies, arguments, and encounters were revealed only when the astonishing Red Book was published in 2009. Marilyn Powell scouts its dangerous contents.

June 25
MR.PUNCH
How a deformed, child-murdering, wife-beating, psychopathic hand puppet became a cultural icon, a famous satirical magazine, and a four-century-old folkplay cherished by small children for enacting horrendous acts of violence. A documentary by Chris Brookes.

July

July 2
WHO STARTED THE WAR OF 1812?
It was a war that nobody really wanted, although both sides ultimately claimed to win. IDEAS host Paul Kennedy considers the causes and the consequences of the War of 1812-14, from both sides, and includes an "Indian" perspective that is all too frequently ignored.

July 9, 16 & 23
THE SWORD BROTHERS
Christians against Muslims, the Crusades that began in the eleventh century were wars for control of the Holy Land. The Crusaders themselves were a hybrid of warrior and priest, defending the pilgrim, attacking the Infidel. These Military Orders were also the first multinational corporations, and until their eventual destruction and diminishment, the Knights Templar, the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights held unparalleled power, enough to threaten whole kingdoms and the Papacy itself. Philip Coulter tells the story.

July 30
WHERE IS THE INTERNET?
Can you come up with an answer? Most of us can't. And those who do have an answer-those in the field-often respond in technical language and with explanations that are intellectually counterintuitive. Barbara Nichol asks experts in the field a simple question: where is the Internet?

August

August 6
FOOTPRINTS IN KENYA
An ongoing annual series about the connection between Sport and Society, "Footprints 2012" takes IDEAS host Paul Kennedy to the Great Rift Valley, in Kenya. He spends time in the training camp for distance runners that may produce pots of gold at this summer's London Olympics.

August 13
THE GENDER TRAP, Part 1
For the past 20 years we've been hearing the claims from pop psychology to neuroscience: men and women, boys and girls, have different brains. The books are plentiful: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,The Female Brain, The Essential Difference. The idea that males and females are hard-wired to learn differently, making them better suited for specific professions, has taken hold.  Yet some neuroscientists and psychologists believe this leads to unhealthy gender stereotyping.  IDEAS producer Mary O'Connell explores the debate.

August 20
THE GENDER TRAP, Part 2
In May, 2011, a Toronto family decided not to reveal the sex of their newborn baby. Only nine people in the world know whether baby Storm is a boy or a girl. The parents believe that, like stereotypes about race and class, gender stereotypes constrict individual identity.. When the story of Storm became public, controversy ensued. IDEAS producer Mary O'Connell takes up the story and the debate.

August 27
IDOLATRY FOR BEGINNERS
At a time of widespread obsession with everything from money to celebrity to the latest in techno gadgetry, does the idea of idolatry have more than religious significance? IDEAS producer Frank Faulk explores the meaning of idolatry in a secular age.