Big Ideas Features
The Boyer Lectures
The Boyer Lectures is a series of talks by prominent Australians chosen by the ABC Board to present ideas on major social, scientific or cultural issues. The lectures have been broadcast on ABC Radio for more than 40 years and have stimulated thought, discussion and debate in Australia on an astonishing range of subjects – great minds examining issues and values. [find out more...]
Music and Fashion
Music and Fashion asks why certain types of music have been fashionable at certain moments in history, and what this might tell us about the way in which human beings hear, appreciate and use music. Beginning with the most visible of musical fashions - dance crazes - the series moves on to the role of religion in both inspiring and denying novelty in music, to musical entrepreneurs, to the transitory (and often non-musical) nature of fame, to the rise and decline of the recording industry, and finally to nostalgia, the fashion that keeps on renewing itself.
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The Alfred Deakin Innovation Lectures
More than ever before, Australia’s prosperity depends on original thinkers; people who are prepared to take risks, people who challenge the norms. Real Estate and mining booms will not provide financial security forever. Our approach to the concepts of innovation and creativity must be generous and open-minded. It requires the active engagement of all sectors of society; politicians and policy-makers, educators and economists, business and community leaders, urban and regional citizens alike. [find out more...]
The Wisdom Interviews
In candid discussions, Peter Thompson draws out the private person behind the public face to shed light on how people have come to prominence and achieved so much: the hurdles they have faced, the strengths they have had to draw upon and the lessons they have learned through life. Each of his subjects talks about contemporary Australia and their hopes for the future, presenting at times controversial views. [find out more...]
Patriots Three
In September 1915 a patriotic young Australian journalist named Keith Murdoch visited the Anzac battlefield at the Dardanelles where, just weeks before, thousands of Australian and British soldiers had been killed. Murdoch's letter to Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes on the situation there led directly to the ending of the campaign. It also won Murdoch the trust of the British Minister of Munitions, David Lloyd George. [find out more...]
Great Lovers
Why do we passionately believe in love? For us, falling in love is the deepest source of pleasure and meaning, and the key to living happily ever after. So why are all our great love stories tragedies? This six-part series delves into our favourite stories of forbidden passion, and charts the course of true love, which as we know, never did run smooth. [find out more...]
