The Sunday Magazinewith Piya Chattopadhyay

Are we in the midst of a "psychedelic renaissance"? University of Saskatchewan’s Erika Dyck shares the homegrown history of psychedelics research and why these drugs are seeing a resurgence today.

In a new book, historian Allan Bartley traces the KKK's northward expansion from the 1920s through the 1980s and why it resonated here. He speaks with Piya about this history, and what it can reveal about contemporary hate groups active in Canada today.  

Piya Chattopadhyay speaks with Adelina Iftene, Peter Mansbridge, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and William Prince.

In his latest report, Canada’s prison ombudsman Ivan Zinger called for a temporary moratorium on medically assisted deaths inside prisons, which he says breach the prison system's ethical and legal obligations. But Adelina Iftene, an expert on prison health law, believes the larger issue is why any inmate who qualifies for MAID is inside a prison to begin with.

The veteran CBC broadcaster speaks with Piya Chattopadhyay about his new book Extraordinary Canadians, written with fellow former CBC journalist Mark Bulgutch, and why it's important to him to surface stories of lesser-hailed people in medicine, engineering, sports and beyond.

Since Joe Biden was declared U.S. President-elect, the Trump administration has refused to legitimize the election results, mounted legal challenges and declined to communicate with the Biden team. American historian and culture critic Ruth Ben-Ghiat has seen this behaviour before and she has a word for it: authoritarianism. She speaks with Piya Chattopadhyay about her new book Strongmen and what the history of authoritarianism tells us about the future of the U.S., with or without Trump at the helm.

The Indigenous singer-songwriter speaks with Piya Chattopadhyay about gospel's ability to comfort us amid grief and provide hope for tomorrow, and why he believes there's still power in it despite the fact that Christianity and gospel were historically colonizing tools.

Piya Chattopadhyay looks at division in the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, and speaks with Saadia Sediqzadah and Harold McGee

The 2020 United States presidential election sent at least one clear message: Americans are deeply divided. To better understand the discord — and how to overcome it — Piya Chattopadhyay speaks with three people who've studied voters and division.

Dr. Saadia Sediqzadah, a psychiatrist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, works primarily with patients who experience psychosis. Her work today is informed by her efforts to support a beloved family member with schizophrenia. She shares how her family’s experience shapes her approach to building trust with her patients and her position on the role of police in mental health calls.

Piya Chattopadhyay speaks with Robert Reich, Chilly Gonzales and Michael Ungar

Michael Ungar, director of Dalhousie University's Resilience Research Centre, speaks with Piya Chattopadhyay about his research on the nature of resilience during the pandemic, and how it plays out differently depending on your community and generation.

Following last week's hour-long exploration of hope, we hear from listener Sally Armour Wotton about a storytelling project she spearheaded during the pandemic in an effort to bring comfort and hope to people in long term care homes and others living in isolation.

Piya Chattopadhyay speaks with Maria Hinojosa, Yuval Noah Harari and Katie Stockdale, and takes a closer look at the power and perils of hope.

In the wake of news that hundreds of immigrant children are still separated from their parents years after attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, Maria Hinojosa — host of Latino USA — speaks with Piya Chattopadhyay about the long-simmering anti-immigrant sentiment on both sides of the aisle that's led to this moment, how her own story intersects with that history, and how Latino voters are being engaged in the current U.S. election.

Historian Yuval Noah Harari has adapted his international bestseller Sapiens into a graphic novel, complete with superheroes, detectives and nods to reality TV. He joins Piya Chattopadhyay to discuss what it took to adapt the book into comic form, the biggest threats facing humans today — and how to counter them — and what we are learning about humankind during the pandemic.

In dark times, hope can be a life raft. But hope can also set us up to be let down. In this hour, we explore both the benefits and the risks of hope, and how we can all "hope well" in the face of uncertainty and despair.

Piya Chattopadhyay speaks with Kevin Roose, Doug Smith, Douglas Harper, Ken Otter, Scott Ramsay and Minnie Akparook.

A summer job with a nurse in Great Whale River inspired Minnie Akparook to pursue the same profession. She eventually practised nursing for two decades in Canada’s North. But the journey to reach that goal also took 20 years.