Podcast

Quillette Podcast

News, News Commentary, Politics

Long-form conversations with scientists, writers, historians, and public intellectuals on the ideas shaping — and dividing — the Western world.

Mostly hosted by Jonathan Kay — Canadian journalist, author, and Quillette editor whose books include Among the Truthers, a landmark investigation into conspiracy culture. Kay brings a rare combination of intellectual range, genuine curiosity, and willingness to push back, whether the subject is evolutionary biology, cancel culture, geopolitics, or the philosophy of free speech.

Non-dogmatic, evidence-driven, and unafraid of controversy.

Episodes
351
Releases
Weekly
Typical length
45 min
On air since
2018
Latest episode
1 week ago

Episodes

351 episodes, newest first

  1. Canada’s Unmarked-Graves Social Panic (2021-26) Explained

    Show notes

    Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay discusses the underlying societal factors that caused his country's journalists, politicians, and academics to uncritically accept false claims that the bodies of 215 Indigenous children had been found on the grounds of a former school.

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    46 min
  2. Watching a Cancelled Novelist Confront His False Accusers

    Show notes

    Podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Amy Hamm about Steven Galloway’s legal campaign against the University of British Columbia scholars who promoted baseless allegations that he was a rapist

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    38 min
  3. Skeptic vs. ‘Doomer’: How Scared Should We Be of Rogue AI?

    Show notes

    Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay interviews AI expert Gary Marcus about the possibility that a rogue artificial intelligence will turn us all into paper clips.

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    51 min
  4. The Price of Affirmative Action in Canadian Academia

    Show notes

    Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Eric Kaufmann about his new Macdonald-Laurier Institute report, ⁠The Equity-Excellence Trade-Off: A Study of EDI in the Canada Research Chairs Program⁠.

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    36 min
  5. Covering the Culture Wars

    Show notes

    Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Benjamin Ryan about his journalistic adventures reporting on AIDS, monkeypox, gender activism, and the Jason Arday saga.

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    39 min
  6. Politicising the Humanities: Sociology as Case Study

    Show notes

    Jonathan Kay speaks with University of Hawaii professor Ashley Rubin, co-author of the recently published Special Commission Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences.

    00:00 Introduction: the Vanderbilt report

    02:30 Do professional associations speak for the field?

    05:35 What gets on the conference programme—and what doesn't

    06:10 Why everyone picks on sociologists

    08:05 The variables you're not allowed to test

    11:15 "Prisoner resistance": how a concept got out of hand

    14:00 A Marxist editor and the fear of seeming conservative

    17:25 What the report does and doesn't claim

    18:50 The Yale trust report and grade inflation

    22:40 Activists, ringleaders and the silent majority

    25:50 Inside the ASA boycott

    28:45 Should sociology split into parties?

    31:50 Durkheim on why disciplines need shared rules

    34:30 Authoritarianism from your own side

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    38 min
  7. The ‘Sex Recession’ is Real

    Show notes

    Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to Debra Soh, author of Sextinction: The Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy, about neuroscience, hypergamy, elephant seals, politicised sex research, the perils of polyamory, and the sex-repellent scourge of ’phubbing.’

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    1 hr 2 min
  8. First Nations Chief, Podcast Pundit, Indigenous Gadfly

    Show notes

    Jonathan Kay speaks with Aaron Pete, leader of the Chawathil First Nation in British Columbia, about his community’s socioeconomic challenges, intra-Indigenous politics, the legacy of residential schools, and progressive taboos surrounding of “unmarked graves.”

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    51 min
  9. The Great Canadian Unmarked-Graves Social Panic (2021-2026)

    Show notes

    Mia Hughes and Stella O'Malley of the Beyond Gender podcast interview Quillette's Jonathan Kay about the progressive ideological manias spawned during the Justin Trudeau years.

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    56 min
  10. Why the Enlightenment Matters

    Show notes

    Iona Italia talks to lawyer and historian Adam Wakeling about the enduring importance of Enlightenment values and how to defend them today.

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    58 min
  11. The Case Against State-Sanctioned Euthanasia

    Show notes

    Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Kathleen Stock about her new book, Do Not Go Gentle—in which she argues that governments should be denied any institutional role in facilitating the death of their citizens.

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    35 min
  12. An Ivy League University Looks Inward

    Show notes

    Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Yale Law School professor Sarath Sanga, co-author of a surprisingly candid new ⁠report⁠ explaining why the American public is losing trust in the country’s colleges and universities.

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    46 min
  13. The Last Straight Woman

    Show notes

    Senior Writer and Podcast Producer Iona Italia talks to writer Phoebe Maltz Bovy about her latest book: 'The Last Straight Woman: On Desiring Men.'

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    45 min
  14. Is Fighting Antisemitism a Waste of Time?

    Show notes

    Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, who encourages Jews to focus on bolstering their community instead of lecturing right-wing bigots and progressive political extremists who can’t be reasoned with.

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    32 min
  15. Girls in an Online World

    Show notes

    Iona Italia talks to writer Freya India about her book 'Girls: Gen Z and the Commodification of Everything.'

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    50 min
  16. Documenting a Decade of Academic Meltdowns

    Show notes

    Podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with filmmaker Ric Esther Bienstock about her new CBC/BBC documentary, Speechless—which explores the rise of censorship and mobbings on campus.

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    35 min
  17. The Search for Truth

    Show notes

    Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to author Michael Shermer about his new book, Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters.

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    50 min
  18. The Historical Case for Israel

    Show notes

    In a new book, U.S. District Court Judge Roy Altman traces Jews’ indigenous presence in the holy land over the last 3,231 years.

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    34 min
  19. The Ayatollahs' Assassins

    Show notes

    Iona Italia talks to Roya Hakakian about her book ‘Assassins of the Turquoise Palace’ and the past and present crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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    45 min
  20. When Everyone Knows Every Knows...

    Show notes

    Iona Italia talks to cognitive psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker about his new book on Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.

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    45 min

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