A collection of 28 posts
As literary gatekeeping intensifies in the age of social media, author and Harvard fellow Adam Szetela joins Zoe to unpack how moral panics, elite ideology, and institutional cowardice are transforming publishing—and why the culture wars are being fought sentence by sentence.
Amid literary subcultures, competition has always been fierce and unrelenting and has become even more so in our age of elite overproduction. On social media, these embittered rivalries play out in public amid a chorus of backbiting worthy of Chekhov.
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.
Focusing on the handful of papers that are retracted for political reasons can obscure the more important problems afflicting the field of academic publishing.
In 2021, Canadians were told that the remains of 215 Indigenous children had been found at a former school. The story turned out to be false—but no one in authority seems to know how to walk it back.
Art in public spaces will always be scrutinised for the propriety of its iconography, and it will remain under attack as long as its guardians are willing to pander to the narcissistic impulses of the activists.
Jonathan Kay speaks to fellow podcast host Kushal Mehra about the ‘eerie similarities’ between censorship campaigns in India and Canada.
Censorship obscures our view of reality and impedes our society’s ability to function.
Every censorship regime in history has claimed to be protecting the public. But no regime can have prior knowledge of what is true or good. It can only know what the approved narratives are.
J.K. Rowling’s scathingly effective takedown of Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act has been a wonder to behold.
A conversation with the director of Australia's new Free Speech Union.
Aggressive content moderation is presented as a necessary response to hate speech and misinformation—but it's more like a moral panic.
It's not just a matter of weighing up one group’s free speech against another group’s counter-speech. It’s also about one group’s freedom of association being impeded.
The true power of free expression is revealed even in defenses of speech advocating against it.
Sensational 2021 claims that unmarked Indigenous child graves had been discovered in British Columbia now seem doubtful. But saying so may soon be a criminal offence