Quillette Podcast

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

Writer Meghan Daum talks to Iona Italia about her new essay collection, The Catastrophe Hour. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 June 2025

Dancer and choreographer Rosie Kay talks to Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay about the three radioactive political topics that can derail an artist’s career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 4 June 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 31 May 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 26 May 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 16 May 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 9 May 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 2 May 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 26 April 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 19 April 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 12 April 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 5 April 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 28 March 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 15 March 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 23 February 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 14 February 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 8 February 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 1 February 2025

Quillette podcast host Iona Italia talks to “Mungo Manic” about his extensive research into the lives of the ancient Australians.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 24 January 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 18 January 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 11 January 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 11 January 2025

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

Transcribed - Published: 24 December 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 20 December 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 13 December 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 6 December 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 30 November 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 19 November 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 13 November 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 8 November 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 2 November 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 24 October 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 18 October 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 9 October 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 4 October 2024

'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

Transcribed - Published: 25 September 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 12 September 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 3 September 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 28 August 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 21 August 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 15 August 2024

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

Transcribed - Published: 8 August 2024