Advertise on podcast: Big Ideas

Big Ideas is broadcasting the 2023 Reith Lectures this week. It is unable to provide a podcast of the lectures. The audio of the four lectures will be available on the Big Ideas website for a limited time. However, you can listen to the lectures and find transcripts on the BBC website.

Celebrities, and their fans, wield tremendous economic, cultural and political influence – and none more so than US pop superstar Taylor Swift. Academia is getting on board, with university courses now entirely dedicated to studying the icon. But celebrities and their fans have not always been taken seriously, by academia, or broader society – particularly when it’s someone idolised by young girls.    Well, these academics are trying to change that. Ahead of Swift's record-breaking Australian tour, 160 scholars from around the world came together in Melbourne for the inaugural Swiftposium conference, to engage in critical dialogue about Swift’s popularity and its profound influence on society, from feminism, to gender, fandom, popular culture, literature, the economy, the music industry, and more. This event was presented by the University of Melbourne from February 11 to 13, 2024.  “The worst kind of person is someone who makes someone feel bad, dumb or stupid for being excited about something.” - Taylor Swift, 2019 

Have you ever followed your intuition, or been guided by a gut feeling? Is intuition real or imagined? Can it be learnt and harnessed for good in our lives? Neuroscientist and psychologist Joel Pearson wanted to find out. He joins Natasha Mitchell to discuss his book The Intuition Toolkit – the New Science of Knowing What without Knowing Why.

You’ve probably heard the expression “I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it”. But in the age of social media, cancel culture, keyboard warriors, fake news, algorithms, corporate influence, far right extremism and all the rest, does that lofty ambition still have currency? What has happened to civil debate and the reasonable exchange of competing ideas in public, to conversations that might lead to productive compromise, or simply agreeing to disagree?  Has civil society always been so... uncivil?  This event was held at the Addi Road Community Organisation on October 25, 2023. 

Fiction is a literary seismograph for social conflict and stories can change reality. They have shaped human rights; they have helped fight domestic violence and discrimination. There is nothing like an innocent story! AND… There's an open secret: the games industry is pretty gay. It shouldn't come off as a surprise that one of the most creative professions and hobbies attracts a diverse and passionate collective of artistic individuals. We blitz through a brief history of queer games and at the end you will see that the answers may not be binary after all.

Public libraries are for everyone, but last year, the LGBTIQA+ community became a target for exclusion by anti-queer campaigners, when drag story time events – designed to celebrate diversity and embrace rainbow families –were shut down or postponed due to threats, protests and abuse. Librarians, drag artists, families and council staff were on the frontline of these attacks. To counter the hurt caused by these campaigns, the LGBTIQA+ and library communities joined forces to celebrate and reclaim libraries as safe spaces for everyone.  

Some things feel impossible to change without money and power. Meet four trailblazers didn't let that stop them. Fighting corporations. Stopping violence. Transforming talk on sex and consent. Helping men heal from childhood trauma. They join Natasha Mitchell and an audience of high school students to explore what pushed them to act.

Women and girls in Iran continue to take to the streets and protest gender oppression and human rights abuses. And too often they risk their lives for this fight. Iranian-born human rights advocate Nazanin Boniadi has used her public profile as an actress to campaign in solidarity with the people of Iran. For that, she's been honoured with the 2023 Sydney Peace Prize. The 'Women, Life, Freedom' movement has demonstrated the unifying power and potential of women's rights as a lever for mobilisation and demands for change. The movement makes the pursuit of women's rights an essential part of any pathway towards fundamental change in Iran.

US singer, songwriter and producer Caroline Polachek is known as one of the most inventive pop musicians working in the industry today, pushing the boundaries of what the genre is, and what it means for the people who listen to it. Off the back of her acclaimed seventh album, ‘Desire, I want to turn into you’, Polachek opens up about her creative process, her varied career, and why pop should be respected as an artform in its own right. 

Speaking freely isn't only about Freedom of Speech legislation, it's equally about social norms, loving your family and courage. Authors Lea Ypi and Hayley Campbell discuss what's difficult to talk about. Death and what happens your body when you die. And whether Albania has experienced more freedom in communist times – only in very specific circumstances. They explore the factors that allow us to speak freely, what forces can constrain these … and what happens when we are unleashed to speak the truth.

Housing is a hot mess in many remote Aboriginal communities,  including Tennant Creek, and the rollercoaster of government policies and interventions hasn't helped the situation. What's on offer is often culturally unsafe, crowded, and a climate disaster. But housing is hard to fix too. This group of Traditional Owners, health professionals, architects and others have a vision for how.

Psychedelics were once the domain of hippies and cults, but these drugs have come long way from the ‘turn on, tune in, drop out’ countercultural philosophy of the 1960s and 70s. Nowadays, the field of psychedelic research is experiencing a resurgence, with substances like psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine being used in controlled laboratories to treat complex mental health issues. In 2023, Australia became the first country in the world to permit psychiatrists to use psychedelic medicines to treat certain patients. But are psychedelic assisted therapies a silver bullet cure for mental health disorders, or have the regulations gotten ahead of the evidence?