Quillette Podcast
Quillette Podcast
Quillette
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.
Canada’s Unmarked-Graves Social Panic (2021-26) Explained
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 26
45 min
Watching a Cancelled Novelist Confront His False Accusers
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 16
38 min
Skeptic vs. ‘Doomer’: How Scared Should We Be of Rogue AI?
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 1
50 min
The Price of Affirmative Action in Canadian Academia
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 15
36 min
Covering the Culture Wars
Quillette podcast host Jonathan Kay speaks with Benjamin Ryan about his journalistic adventures reporting on AIDS, monkeypox, gender activism, and the Jason Arday saga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 29
38 min
Politicising the Humanities: Sociology as Case Study
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 4
38 min
The ‘Sex Recession’ is Real
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.’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 26
1 hr 2 min
First Nations Chief, Podcast Pundit, Indigenous Gadfly
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.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 7
50 min
The Great Canadian Unmarked-Graves Social Panic (2021-2026)
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 22
55 min
Load more