Quillette Podcast

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 1 June 2026

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 21 May 2026

Senior Writer and Podcast Producer Iona Italia talks to writer Phoebe Maltz Bovy about her latest book: 'The Last Straight Woman: On Desiring Men.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 May 2026

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 2 May 2026

Iona Italia talks to writer Freya India about her book 'Girls: Gen Z and the Commodification of Everything.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 April 2026

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.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 April 2026

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 April 2026

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 5 April 2026

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 27 March 2026

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2026

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with University College London law professor Ronan McCrea about his new book, The End of the Gay Rights Revolution: How Hubris and Overreach Threaten Gay Freedom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 17 March 2026

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to historian Clare Mulley about her biography of Polish war heroine Elżbieta Zawacka, aka Agent Zo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 12 March 2026

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Iranian-Canadian human-rights activist Kaveh Shahrooz about whether Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last Shah of Iran, might rise to power as a new Prince of Persia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2026

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to Maureen Callaghan about her book American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 26 February 2026

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with journalist Adam Zivo about the 10 February school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia—a mass murder perpetrated by a trans-identified male gunman who was initially identified by police and journalists as a woman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 February 2026

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to writer Lionel Shriver about her new novel, A Better Life, which tackles the theme of immigration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 11 February 2026

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with B.C. politician Dallas Brodie about why her province continues to promote dubious social-justice policies and myths—including the false claim that 215 dead Indigenous children were discovered four years ago in ‘unmarked graves.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2026

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to Tiffany Jenkins about her fascinating and provocative new history, 'Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 29 January 2026

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to Graham Majin about the recent scandal at the BBC, and the need for reporters to prevent the ‘poison of narrative’ from corrupting their craft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 17 January 2026

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to Iranian writer and journalist Roya Hakakian about the protests in Iran and why and how they might succeed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 January 2026

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to psychologist David Weitzner about the differences between human cognition and artificial intelligence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 2 January 2026

Quillette’s Jonathan Kay speaks with History of Byzantium podcast host Robin Pierson about the Christian traditions and imperial culture that took root in the eastern half of the Roman Empire . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 24 December 2025

⁠Prisoner #1056⁠ author Roy Ratnavel discusses his journey from a prison cell in war-torn Sri Lanka to the heights of Canada’s financial industry—and the (sometimes politically incorrect) lessons about race, immigration, and multiculturalism he’s learned along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 19 December 2025

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to Jane Austen scholar John Mullan to commemorate the 250th anniversary of her birth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 17 December 2025

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to sociologist Nicholas Wolfinger about trends in marriage, divorce, and maternity in the US from the 1950s to the present day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 4 December 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with writer Ben Appel about his new memoir, Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 30 November 2025

In an interview with Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay, Canadaland publisher Jesse Brown discusses how an anti-Israel faction within his own subscriber base tried to cancel him after he began speaking out about the rise of antisemitism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 21 November 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with biblical scholar Paula Fredriksen, whose new book describes the theological diversity that existed among Christian communities before Nicene Christianity was adopted as Rome’s state religion in the fourth century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 November 2025

Quillette podcast host speaks with ⁠Healing Roar⁠ founder and comedian Matthew Pettit, who candidly tells audiences about the severe childhood abuse that once propelled him into a life of sexual confusion, meth addiction, crime, and incarceration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 10 November 2025

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to Harry Saul Markham about the increasingly acute threat of Islamism in the UK and the normalisation of virulent antisemitism among British Muslims. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 5 November 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with theoretical physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss about ⁠his latest book projec⁠t, in which renowned scholars speak out about threats to open inquiry and the scientific process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 1 November 2025

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to criminal justice researcher Andrew Bushnell about the many causes of the recent surge in crime in Melbourne. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 25 October 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Danny Rensch about his astounding journey from the ‘Church of Immortal Consciousness’ to the role of Chief Chess Officer at Chess.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 October 2025

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to Dr Karleen Gribble, who works in the field of maternal and infant health, on the impacts of desexed language on women’s healthcare and wellbeing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 October 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks with Canadian Genspect director Mia Hughes about the emerging ‘gender glasnost’—and the best way to continue rolling back the excesses of trans activism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 4 October 2025

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to author Andrew Doyle about his new book, The End of Woke: How the Culture War Went Too Far and What to Expect from the Counter-Revolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 25 September 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Russell Shorto, whose new book chronicles the extraordinary events in 1664 that delivered Manhattan from the Dutch to the British. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 September 2025

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to philosopher Holly Lawford-Smith about her new book, Feminism Beyond Left and Right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 11 September 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Stanford University infectious diseases expert Jake Scott about the perils of rolling back immunization treatments for COVID, RSV, and Measles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 September 2025

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to evolutionary psychologist Rob Kurzban about his book Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 28 August 2025

Managing Editor Iona Italia talks to Roya Hakakian about her extraordinary memoir, Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 August 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to linguist, mathematician, and tournament organizer John Chew about the world of ultra-elite Scrabble word-masters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 16 August 2025

Iona Italia talks to novelist and historian Nev March about how a series of landmark court cases in the 19th and 20th centuries upended both the Indian legal system and the Parsi community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 August 2025

Gay activist-turned-journalist Adam Zivo explains how radicalized forms of trans and queer advocacy became a liability to the once-united LGBT movement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 31 July 2025

Iona Italia talks to historian and film-maker Phil Craig about the latest in his series of books about World War II: 1945: A Reckoning: War, Empire and the Struggle for a New World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 25 July 2025

Quillette podcast host interviews veteran entertainment journalist Ben Mulroney—whose career has taken him to the Oscars red carpet and Kelly Ripa’s studio—about how ideological fads have damaged his industry.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 17 July 2025

The philosopher Stephen Harrop interviews Quillette’s Managing Editor Iona Italia about her book Anxious Employment on the journalism of Enlightenment London. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 11 July 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay talks to Heterodox Academy scholar Nafees Alam about the need to challenge political orthodoxies in the field of social work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 7 July 2025

Iona Italia talks to Professor Kendall Clements of the University of Auckland about attempts to conflate traditional Maori knowledge with science, which, he argues, debases both. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 27 June 2025

Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay interviews Jonathan Spyer, director of research at the Middle East Forum, about how Israel laid the groundwork for its war with Iran by confronting threats in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 18 June 2025