Quillette Podcast

Harvard professor Steven Pinker tells Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay why Donald Trump’s campaign against his university’s ‘woke’ policies goes too far. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Ellie Avishai—who recently lost her affiliated position at UATX after she pushed back against the school’s strident anti-DEI messaging. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to engineer Paul Brown about the hidden costs of renewables and the skewed incentives that are driving some countries towards unsustainable energy policies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Washington Post columnist and TED Talker Megan McArdle about the short-term pain—and long-term gain—heralded by the AI revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to Alan Davidson about censorship, self-censorship, the Online Safety Act and other threats to free speech in Australia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In advance of Monday’s nation-wide vote, Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay discusses Justin Trudeau’s resignation, Pierre Poilievre’s bad luck, the rise of Mark Carney, and the effects of Donald Trump’s aggressive protectionism on Canadian politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with author and TED Talker Lenore Skenazy, whose campaign to give children more opportunities for independent play and learning once earned her the title of ‘America’s Worst Mother.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to John H. Cochrane aka "The Grumpy Economist" about the motivations, effects and implications of Donald Trump's economic policies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to William Costello, an evolutionary psychologist whose work focuses on incels, about what the Netflix series 'Adolescence' gets right and wrong about this group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with author and satirist Andrew Doyle about the worrying rise of illiberal ideologies and cultish political tendencies among conservatives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette’s Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to scholar Izabella Tabarovsky about the Soviet roots of contemporary anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with book author Ira Wells about the censorship demands emanating from both sides of the political spectrum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to Brookings Institution senior fellow Jonathan Rauch about his latest book, Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette editor-in-chief Claire Lehmann speaks with Bangladeshi-born Australian psychiatrist and journalist Tanveer Ahmed about the rise of Jew-hatred in their country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to evolutionary psychologist David C. Geary about why he believes evolved differences between the sexes have been growing more salient in western societies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with The Line editor Jen Gerson about how U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats have affected Canada’s already fractured political landscape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Yale English professor-turned-essayist William Deresiewicz, who argues that Americans—many Democrats included—are fed up with campus-style progressive radicalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Iona Italia speaks with Dutch writer Marco Visscher, author of The Power of Nuclear: The Rise, Fall and Return of Our Mightiest Energy Source. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with University of Southern California scholar William Deverell about the enormous fires that have destroyed large swathes of the Los Angeles area. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to eminent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins about science, literature, and genetics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a special yuletide episode, Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with David Crowther about seventeenth-century puritan attitudes toward yuletide debauchery—and about his acclaimed History of England podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to cultural evolutionary theorist Michael Muthukrishna, author of A Theory of Everyone, about the human dual inheritance—part inherited, part taught—and about how energy availability underpins everything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Joan Smith, whose new book critically examines the 2,000-year-old propaganda campaign against imperial Rome’s leading women. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to globetrotter and intellectual magpie Anna Gat about her modern-day salon, Interintellect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay discusses recent events at the University of Western Ontario, where instructors spent months denouncing an outspoken education student who’d asked awkward questions about Indigenous reconciliation—until a tribunal concluded they’d violated her rights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to Sam Bowman about how to combat the economic stagnation and excess bureaucracy that are currently preventing the UK from reaching its full potential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to author Adam Kirsch about the growing corps of academics and activists seeking to demonize ‘settler colonialists’ in North America, Australia—and especially Israel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to Nick Osmond-Jones about the impacts of some absurd DEI directives on Canadian public service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with prolific Harvard University legal scholar Cass Sunstein about his new book, Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to Jack Despain Zhou (aka "Tracing Woodgrains") about the decline of standards at Wikipedia as a result of the obsessive efforts of ideologically motivated editors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with scholar Musa al-Gharbi, whose acclaimed new book analyses the rise of progressive ideological orthodoxy as a means for elites to signal status and accumulate ‘cultural capital.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to artist Megan Gafford about how we have come to value statement-making over beauty and craftsmanship in art and architecture. To listen to the full episode, please become a Quillette subscriber https://quillette.com/#/portal/signup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Kay speaks with Bard College historian Sean McMeekin about his new book, To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism. To listen to the full episode, please become a Quillette subscriber https://quillette.com/#/portal/signup Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

'Trans Rights, Israel and the Progressive Circus' with Brianna Wu. Iona Italia talks to Democratic political campaigner Brianna Wu about finding a more sensible approach to trans rights and combating progressive insanity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with author Paul Berman about the lingering influence of ’Black Power’ advocate Stokely Carmichael, who once infamously claimed that ’the only good Zionist is a dead Zionist.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcast host Iona Italia talks to Gerfried Ambrosch about pro-Israel feeling on the German Left, antisemitism among Muslim immigrants and why Israel’s safety is “Germany’s reason of state.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Roya Hakakian about the rise and fall of Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, a former Iranian official who’d presented himself to Oberlin as an agent of peace and ‘forgiveness.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcast host Iona Italia talks to John Wood, Jr. of Braver Angels about building a stronger democratic consensus in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with University of Manchester Developmental Biologist Emma Hilton about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who won the gold medal in the women's welterweight event at the 2024 Summer Olympics, despite widely reported indications that Khelif may be biologically male. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to writer Joan Smith about the scandals that unfolded at Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre under the leadership of its male trans-identified CEO, Mridul Wadhwa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talked to Oliver Traldi about his recent book, Political Beliefs: A Philosophical Introduction. They discussed a number of philosophical questions with implications for everyone who is keenly interested in politics. What do we mean when we describe something as political? How do we form our political beliefs? Why do those views tend to cluster around certain anchoring beliefs? Is the marketplace of ideas a good metaphor for the way in which we arrive at political opinions? Why is politics so adversarial and is that a good thing? How does identity figure into this? And why should we take an interest in politics at all? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia interviews linguistic anthropologist Nick Enfield about why language is good for lawyers and bad for scientists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Kay speaks to fellow podcast host Kushal Mehra about the ‘eerie similarities’ between censorship campaigns in India and Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to the president of the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin, who explains the intellectual, economic, social, and ecological advantages of settling the Red Planet and how to overcome the challenges of doing so. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York Times columnist Pamela Paul tells Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay why standing around yelling slogans isn’t her preferred way of changing the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iona Italia talks to Nev March about her novel, Murder in Old Bombay, set in late 19th-century India and about the Zoroastrians of Bombay past and present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to Atlantic Magazine staff writer Conor Friedersdorf about an alarmingly censorious government bill that would allow officials to punish Canadians for things they haven’t done yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to Duke University law school professor (and former U.S. National Collegiate athletic champion) Doriane Lambelet Coleman about her new book, On Sex and Gender: A Commonsense Approach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Iona Italia talks to Timandra Harkness about her new book on technology, micro-targeting, personalisation and narcissism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Morning After the Revolution author Nellie Bowles about her tragicomic journalistic adventures amid progressive true believers and ideological enforcers—from the offices of The New York Times to the streets of Seattle and San Francisco. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices