Free Speech in Australia
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
May 02, 2025•15 min
Quillette Podcast
The Quillette Podcast is a platform for rigorous, academic discussions rooted in common sense and free inquiry. Non-dogmatic and grounded in liberal values, the podcast serves as a beacon for thoughtful conversation on science, politics, philosophy, and culture. Quillette prides itself on intellectual honesty, avoiding ideological extremism in favor of evidence-based reasoning and progress. Hosted by leading voices in academia and journalism, past guests include evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and journalist Douglas Murray, among others. Expect candid conversations that promote common sense and challenge anti-science and conspiratorial narratives from both the far left and right.
Episodes
Canada’s Strange Election Season
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
Apr 26, 2025•21 min
Making the Case for ‘Free-Range Parenting’
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
Apr 19, 2025•23 min
The Trouble with Tariffs
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
Apr 12, 2025•16 min
How Accurate Is 'Adolescence'?
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
Apr 05, 2025•16 min
The Scourge of the ‘Woke Right’
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
Mar 28, 2025•36 min
Anti-Zionism, Past and Present
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
Mar 20, 2025•16 min
On Book Banning
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
Mar 15, 2025•26 min
Christianity and the American Polity
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
Mar 06, 2025•15 min
Australia’s Antisemitism Crisis
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
Feb 23, 2025•15 min
The Great Divergence
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
Feb 14, 2025•18 min
The Canadian Episode: Trump’s Tariffs and Trudeau’s Travails
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
Feb 08, 2025•41 min
‘The Politics of the Academy Have Been Defeated’
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
Feb 01, 2025•16 min
'The Power of Nuclear'
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
Jan 18, 2025•18 min
The Tragedy of California’s Wildfires
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
Jan 11, 2025•18 min
Reading and Writing Science
Iona Italia talks to eminent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins about science, literature, and genetics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 11, 2025•45 min
Did Oliver Cromwell Really Kill Christmas?
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
Dec 24, 2024•18 min
'A Theory of Everyone'
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
Dec 20, 2024•18 min
In Defence of Julia the Elder
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
Dec 13, 2024•20 min
'Interintellect and the Modern-Day Salon'
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
Dec 06, 2024•19 min
Lessons from a Teachers-College Battle Over Free Speech and ‘Decolonization’
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
Nov 30, 2024•17 min
'Making Britain Great Again'
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
Nov 19, 2024•21 min
The Campaign Against 'Settler Colonialism’
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
Nov 13, 2024•30 min
Canadian Bureaucracy and Its Discontents
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
Nov 08, 2024•22 min
How Universities Should Regulate Contentious Speech
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
Nov 02, 2024•14 min
Unreliable Sources
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
Oct 24, 2024•22 min
We Have Never Been Woke
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
Oct 18, 2024•13 min
In Defence of Beauty with Megan Gafford
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
Oct 09, 2024•21 min
A Brief History of Communism with Sean McMeekin
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
Oct 04, 2024•20 min•Ep. 253
'Trans Rights, Israel and the Progressive Circus' with Brianna Wu
'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
Sep 25, 2024•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 252
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