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Feed your mind. Be provoked. One big idea at a time. Your brain will love you for it. Grab your front row seat to the best live forums and festivals with Natasha Mitchell.

Big Ideas

Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, discusses his pioneering research into traumatic stress and its impact on our brains and bodies. Traumatised people experience incomprehensible anxiety, numbing and intolerable rage. Trauma affects their capacity to concentrate, to remember, to form trusting relationships, and even to feel at home in their own bodies. And he explains promising treatments, including neurofeedback, psychedelic therapy, psychodrama … and dance.

This talk was presented by the Sydney Opera House

Original broadcast on March 26, 2024

Speakers

Dr Bessel van der KolkDutch psychiatrist, author, researcher and educatorAuthor of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking Press, 2014

Sarah KanowskiPresenter of Conversations on RN

Helplines

1800 737 732 / 1800RESPECT or visit https://www.1800respect.org.au

Blue Knot Helpline and Redress Support Service 1300 657 380 or visit

https://blueknot.org.au/survivors/blue-knot-helpline-redress-support-service/

How traumatic stress hurts us — with Bessel van der Kolk

For the past 18 months, Israel's war in Gaza has polarised the world. The Indian author and essayist Pankaj Mishra reckons with the conflict through the lens of colonialism, morality and history.

This event was recorded at the University of NSW Centre for Ideas on 27 February 2025.

Speakers

Pankaj MishraAuthor, The World After Gaza, From the Ruins of Empire and Age of Anger: A History of the PresentEssayist, New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, The New Yorker and more

Simon LongstaffDirector, The Ethics CentreCo-founder, Festival of Dangerous IdeasAdjunct Professor, Australian Graduate School of Management at University of NSW

Further information:

The Shoah after Gaza by Pankaj Mishra - London Review of Books, 24 March 2024

Pankaj Mishra — the world after Gaza

What if we could turn back time on our biological clock and slow down — even reverse — aging? High profile Harvard scientist David Sinclair is co-author of the New York Times bestseller Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To. His lab’s work is as ambitious as it is controversial. He wants to radically change the way we live our lives — and push at the boundary of what it means to be human. Professor Sinclair joins Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell at the 2025 World Science Festival Brisbane.

Speaker

David A SinclairProfessor of GeneticsAuthor (with Matthew D. LaPlante) of Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To (Atria Book, 2019)Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical SchoolPaul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research Harvard University

Live to 150? David Sinclair on why we age — and why he thinks we don't have to

Born a refugee of the Vietnam War, and now a Pulitzer Prize winning American author, Viet Thanh Nguyen unpacks the refugee experience, and the politics and the personal weight of remembering, and forgetting.

This event was recorded at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 11 May 2024.

Speakers

Viet Thanh Nguyen Author, A man of two faces, The Sympathizer, Simone (children's book) and more

Andre Dao (host) Author, Anam (winner of the 2024 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction)Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Melbourne Law School, University of MelbourneCo-founder, Behind the Wire oral history project (and later the award-winning Messenger podcast)

Memory, refugees and the Vietnam War — with Pulitzer Prize winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen

Do you want to live in Putin’s vision of a world in which ‘the big boys’ dominate …. or in one in which smaller nations have a voice? If it’s the latter, so the President of the Czech Republic Petr Pavel, you need to support Ukraine. This war isn’t just about the borders in Ukraine or security in Europe, it affects the world and our principles of sovereignty, integrity, freedom, and the right of smaller nations to decide their own future. Hear from one of Europe’s foremost voices on global security on the implications of the war in Ukraine for the world.

The 2024 Lowy Lecture was presented by the Lowy Institute. November 26, 2024

Speakers

Petr PavelPresident of the Czech Republic

Dr Michael FulliloveExecutive Director of the Lowy Institute

Further information

Transcript of the 2024 Lowy Lecture as delivered, might vary from the audio

President Petr Pavel – on why the war in Ukraine is a fight for geopolitical stability worldwide

A freckle-faced kid from Bondi, Pauline Menczer fought the entrenched sexism of the pro-surfing scene to became women's world surfing champion and pave the way...er, waves..for girl grommets today. But all the while she was also fighting another battle inside her own body’s cells. Ironwoman and surf lifesaving champion Bonnie Hancock became the fastest and youngest person, and the first Australian woman, to circumnavigate Australia on a small surf ski, solo. What possessed her to paddle 12,700 kilometres through crocodile and shark-populated waters, mega-waves, and worse? Pauline and Bonnie join Big Ideas' host Natasha Mitchell for a conversation that might inspire you to chase your dreams, big or small.

This event was organised and hosted by the Queenscliffe Literary Festival. 

Speakers

Pauline MenczerWomen's world surfing champion Author, Surf Like a Woman (2024)

Bonnie HancockAthelete, professional Ironwoman, dieticianAuthor, The Girl Who Touched the Stars (2024)Ambassador, Gotcha4Life Foundation

Further information

Girls Can't Surf documentary

Australian Surfing Awards Surfing Hall of Fame

The surfer and circumnavigator — the gobsmacking feats of Pauline Menczer and Bonnie Hancock

From Vincent Namatjira's painting of Gina Rinehart, to Jonathan Yeo's take on King Charles, what do portraits say about those they represent, those who create them, and the broader context of the time?

The Andrew Sayers Memorial Lecture was recorded at the National Portrait Gallery on 31 July 2024. The National Gallery of Australia's annual lecture with Lindy Lee was recorded on 24 October 2024.

Speakers

Benjamin Law Writer, broadcaster and cultural commentator

Sarah Oakes (host) Director, External Relations, National Portrait Gallery

Lindy Lee Artist

Further information

Watch LIndy Lee's full lecture "A Life of Spirit" here

Catch Lindy Lee at the NGA for Ouroboros (permanent) and her retrospective until 1 June 2025.

Read more about Jordan Richardson's Venus here

Benjamin Law’s butt, and the power and politics of portraiture

Australia's unique biodiversity, a product of almost 50 million years of glorious evolutionary isolation, is in freefall. The threats are not just the rabbits, the cane toads, the cats and foxes – the common culprits. Let's not forget the small but impactful smooth newt or the fierce red fire ants, and the many invasive weeds. Twenty new weeds will establish in the wild in Australia this year – and every year to come … unless things change. But is it possible to stop this ongoing invasion? How do we go about it?

Heartlands Conversations was presented as part of the Blue Mountain Music Festival

Original broadcast on May 16, 2024

Speakers

Costa GeorgiadisHost of ABC TVs Gardening Australia and landscape architect

Andrew CoxCEO of the Invasive Species Council

Gregg Borschmann (host)Writer, radio producer and oral historian for the National Library of Australia

Is Australia overrun by feral animals? With Gardening Australia's Costa Georgiadis

At a time when family violence wasn't even recognised by the law, a group of women broke into two vacant houses in Sydney and claimed squatters' rights, changing lives and attitudes to family violence forever.

This event was recorded at the Elsie Conference on 15 March 2024. Original Big Ideas broadcast on 6 May 2024.

Speakers

Professor Di Otto Halfway House Victoria

Bobbie Townsend Former resident and worker, Elsie Women's Refuge

Vivien Johnson Founding member of Marrickville Women's Refuge Collective

Ludo McFerrin (host) Elsie Women's Refuge

Meet the mothers of Australia's women's refuge movement

They use of shark nets to protect us from sharks is highly controversial. 

Do they work, what do they do to marine life, are there alternatives, and why are sharks so political? This is an issue that ignites passions.

Join Big Ideas' host Natasha Mitchell and guests at the 2024 Ocean Lovers Festival for a robust interrogation of the harms and benefits​​.

Original broadcast April 17, 2024.

Speakers

Lawrence Chlebeck Marine biologist and campaignerHumane Society International 

Dr Chris Pepin-Neff Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, University of Sydney Author, Flaws: Shark Bites and Emotional Public Policymaking (2019) 

Steven Pearce Chief Executive Officer, Surf Life Saving NSW Hannah TaitCEO, Action for Dolphins

Further information: 

Australian UAV Service NSW Shark meshing program 

NSW Shark Management Strategy and Shark Program Review (2022) 

Rebranding Sharks project 

Australian Shark Incident Database

Yearly Worldwide “Shark Attack Summary” (Florida Museum) 

Shark nets information (Action for Dolphins)

The debate over shark nets: killers or life savers? With Natasha Mitchell and guests

It's been 60 years since then Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies sent Australians to fight in the Vietnam War. Since that time, the defence force has been involved in many armed conflicts and peace keeping missions around the world — but with varying degrees of public support. So how have successive Australian governments managed public consensus around military engagements? And with war once again a threat to global security, might they have to do so again?

These events were recorded at the Robert Menzies Institute at the University of Melbourne on 29 April 2025, and at the Australian Catholic University on 11 April 2025.

Speakers

Sir Peter CosgroveFormer Chief of the Australian Defence ForceFormer Australian Governor General

Georgina DownerChief Executive Officer, Robert Menzies Institute, University of Melbourne

Mia Martin HobbsAuthor, Return to Vietnam: An Oral History of American and Australian Veterans' JourneysPostdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University

Australia and the spectre of war — from Vietnam to today

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