...with the new novel, Seven by Farzana Doctor (Ep. 101)
What on Earth is Going on?
Farzana Doctor's new novel, Seven, juggles family, history, culture, and the incredible weight of those forces on women today. It's a detective story and travel novel, and a powerful insight into a woman struggling with sex, identity, her past, and her vast network of relatives. But the overarching issue throughout the book is female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice still common around the world.
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...after 99 Episodes (Ep. 100)
What on Earth is Going on?
It's been over two years since host Ben Charland kicked off this podcast in a basement in Kingston, Ontario. After nearly 100 fascinating conversations about everything from the mafia to the water supply, from science to philosophy, we're revisiting some of the best moments.
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...with Changing Cities (Ep. 99)
What on Earth is Going on?
The one thing that doesn't change about cities is the fact that they are constantly changing. Most people now live in cities, transforming them with their consumer behaviour, their culture, their ideas and their advocacy. City planners have to balance the natural development of these vast social organisms with complex, long-term plans. How do they do it?
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...with Creativity, Music and Politics during COVID-19 (Ep. 98)
What on Earth is Going on?
The coronavirus pandemic is altering our lives in ways we cannot yet comprehend, and in decades we will marvel at this transformative time. COVID-19 is not just accelerating trends that were in place beforehand, but it is creating new realities. How are artists coping? How about our politics and ideologies?
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...with Kingston WritersFest (Ep. 97)
What on Earth is Going on?
What makes a book interesting? Beautiful? Provocative? Necessary? Is reading still the best way to get a message across and tell a good story, and how is it changing in our world today?
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...with Disability (Ep. 96)
What on Earth is Going on?
We will all encounter disability in our lives, either ourselves or someone we know and love. What is our responsibility when that happens? What role should the greater community play to provide care and support? What about government, public policy, and spending? What's changing when it comes to disability and how we care for those who truly need it, and why is this important?
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...with Rebuilding Democracy (Ep. 95)
What on Earth is Going on?
What if being a Member of Parliament or Congress had nothing to do with an election, but rather worked like jury duty? What if our officials were seated randomly in a legislature? What if we innovated the very idea of government itself?
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...with Writing Biography (Ep. 94)
What on Earth is Going on?
Rosemary Sullivan is an acclaimed Canadian poet and biographer. She has written definitive biographies about Elizabeth Smart and Gwendolyn MacEwen as well as a book about the early life of Margaret Atwood. In 2015, Rosemary published "Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva" to widespread praise.
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...with Politics and its Future (Ep. 93)
What on Earth is Going on?
Kent Hehr is a former federal Liberal cabinet minister and member of parliament for Calgary Centre. As a so-called "recovering politician" with careers on both the federal and provincial levels, Kent has a lot to say about what on earth is going on -- but he’s also got an incredible story. In October 1991 he was with some friends in Calgary when someone in another car opened fire. The bullet went into Kent’s spine, and just like that, he was paralyzed from the chest down as a C5 quadriplegic.
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...with Acting, Gaming and Creativity (Ep. 92)
What on Earth is Going on?
Aurora Browne is one of Canada's national treasures. Best known as one of the cast members of the Baroness von Sketch Show and as co-host of the Great Canadian Baking Show, Aurora has been creating daring, funny and original work for theatre, television and film for many years.
info_outlineWhat makes an election work? Is it the technology aggregates our preferences? Is it trust that our choices will be fairly counted, that they have an impact? Is it the institutions that manage the voting process? Or is it, ultimately, the people we elect and whether or not they choose to respect the process? What happens to our democracy when these components are stretched and strained?
Ben chats with Holly Ann Garnett, political scientist and elections expert at the Royal Military College of Canada.
About the Guest
Holly Ann Garnett is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario, and cross-appointed faculty at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
Her research examines how electoral integrity can be strengthened throughout the electoral cycle, including electoral management, registration and voting procedures, election technology and cyber-security, civic literacy and campaign finance. She is a co-convener of the Electoral Management Network, and contributes to the Electoral Integrity Project.
Holly Ann was an Endeavour Research Fellow at The Australian National University (2017), a visiting fellow at the Åbo Akademi, Finland (2017), a visiting researcher at the University of Sydney (2014), and a Killam Fellow at Cornell University (2009).
She completed her PhD in Political Science at McGill University (2017), where she was a student member of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Citizenship. She is also a proud alumna of Queen’s University (MA in Political Studies, 2011) and Nipissing University (BA (Hon) in History and Political Science, 2010).
Learn more about Holly or follow her on Twitter (@HollyAnnGarnett).
Mentioned in this Episode
- Episode No. 68 of this podcast, about Higher Education with Mark Sollis
- Episode No. 13 of this podcast, about the division of political power with Anthony Sayers
- Elections Canada
- Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, a book by Robert D. Putnam
- Pippa Norris, comparative political scientists at the Harvard Kennedy School
- The Electoral Integrity Project, an academic research project based in Harvard and Sydney Universities
- Episode No. 74 of this podcast, about gamification with David Chandross
- On Liberty, classic philosophical work by John Stuart Mill
- Michel Foucault (1926-84), French philosopher
- Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society, a book by Eric Posner and E. Glen Weyl
The Quote of the Week
"When people put their ballots in the boxes, they are, by that act, inoculated against the feeling that the government is not theirs. They then accept, in some measure, that its errors are their errors, its aberrations their aberrations, that any revolt will be against them. It's a remarkably shrewd and rather conservative arrangement when one thinks of it."
- John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006), Canadian-born economist