Ideas

North Korea is no place for evangelical Christians today but peel back the decades and you’ll find Christianity at the heart of the Kim family’s rise to power. Journalist Jonathan Cheng has spent a decade and a half piecing together the crucial role evangelical Christianity played in North Korea’s Kim dynasty — especially in the upbringing of Kim Il Sung, the first leader of the country who's seen today as an immortal and sacred figure. Cheng's book is called Korean Messiah.

Jonathan Cheng is the China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, and was previously the Korea bureau chief, running coverage of the Korean peninsula, including politics and society in both North and South Korea. He has traveled to North Korea twice.

For those who know North Korea as an atheistic, communist nation generally seen as the world’s most oppressive place to try to be a Christian… the history of Kim Il Sung’s rise to power contains some big surprises. Once you peel back the decades you'll find Christianity is at the heart of the Kim family’s rise to power and continuing dynasty. Journalist Jonathan Cheng has spent a decade and a half piecing together the history of North Korea’s Kim dynasty — especially in the upbringing of Kim Il Sung, seen today as an immortal and sacred figure in the country.

If you want to hear what a laughing rat sounds like this podcast is for you. From why the sound of laughter triggers us to join in, to how a laughing yoga class starts, to the difference between AHA and HAHA in science, IDEAS contributor Peter Brown takes us on a joyride to reveal the mystery of laugher. Will this podcast make you laugh? Most likely. But it's better than catching a cold. *This episode originally aired on Nov. 4, 2020.

Africa is a centre of world history — a fact that's been deliberately obscured, says journalist Howard W. French. In this talk based on his book, The Second Emancipation, he explores the surprisingly early seeds of 20th century Pan-African thought, and how Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana went from reluctant student to influential leader of a free Ghana.

Howard W. French delivered the Black History Month lecture at University of Toronto's New College. French was is a former New York Times bureau chief based in Shanghai. He now teaches journalism at Columbia University and is also the author of Born in Blackness.

From Joan of Arc to Kim Kardashian, and Davy Crockett to Donald Trump, celebrity culture has deep and wide roots. Famous people who elicited Kardashian-level feelings of love and hate in the public were present centuries ago — long before screens and social media. Though, as we find out in this podcast, they all share similar qualities. *This episode originally aired on June 30, 2022.

Irina Dumitrescu is a writer, co-host of the LRB podcast Encounters with Medieval Women, and a professor of Medieval English at the University of Bonn.

Sharon Marcus is author of The Drama of Celebrity and the Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.