Podcast
Hard Knox with Amanda Knox
Hosted by Knox Robinson Productions · EN
Amanda Knox has been many things—accused, convicted, exonerated, tabloid villain, true crime icon, best-selling author—and she's still figuring out what to make of it all. Hard Knox is warm without being soft, funny without being light, and intellectually serious without being academic. Amanda argues with her guests, changes her mind, and brings the kind of hard-won perspective that you can only get from someone who's a connoisseur of Italian prison food.
To submit your questions and comments, subscribe at www.amandaknox.substack.com, where you’ll also gain access to ad-free and bonus episodes, subscriber-only essays, and more.
www.amandaknox.com
Twitter: @amandaknox
IG: @amamaknox
Bluesky: @amandaknox.com.bsky.social
39episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
How to Hack Your Brain's Moral Code (Joshua Greene)
5d ago01:03:38Tap to summarizeWhat if a quiz show could fix America's political divide? Amanda talks with Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene about the neuroscience behind moral decision-making, why people don't donate to the charities that do the most good even when they want to, and how a simple cooperative quiz game is measurably reducing animosity between Republicans and Democrats. Amanda and Joshua also dig into effective altruism without the guilt trip, why dialogue alone often fails to bridge divides, and Joshua's own surprising evolution on religion and meditation. Added bonus: Listeners can try Joshua's donation-matching platform at givingmultiplier.org/knox to give to a cause you love (Amanda's is The Innocence Center) and a highly effective charity at the same time, with bonus matching funds for Hard Knox listeners. https://givingmultiplier.org/invite/KNOX Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →
Humor as Catharsis
1w ago00:16:47Tap to summarizeAs she prepares for the premiere of her one-woman show, Cartwheel, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August, Amanda has been thinking about the relationship between tragedy and comedy. This episode from her 20-part Resilience series on the Waking Up app is a look at why finding humor in tragedy is more than a coping mechanism, but a genuine survival skill, and how that idea has shaped her approach to bringing her story to the stage. Hear the full 20-episode Resilience series at wakingup.com/amandaknox. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →
Old School: The Outlaw (Seth Ferranti)
3w ago00:52:01Tap to summarizeSeth Ferranti is a former LSD kingpin and fugitive on the US Marshall’s Top 15 Most Wanted list who faced a highly publicized and lengthy prison sentence due to the DEA's early-'90s crackdown on LSD. The self-described outlaw and ahead-of-his-time activist is now a journalist and filmmaker whose past life informs all aspects of his work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →
Good News Bad News
4w ago00:48:18Tap to summarizeAmanda woke up to good news and bad news arriving at the exact same moment — again. In true Hard Knocks fashion, that personal experience sends Chris and Amanda down a rabbit hole exploring one of life's most disorienting puzzles: is there really such a thing as good news or bad news at all? From the Buddhist parable of the farmer to Stoic amor fati to Mel Brooks playing ball with the universe, they dig into what Zen, Taoism, and a lifetime of very public verdicts can teach us about staying sane when fate won't stop flipping the script. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →
Why Fear Makes Bad Policy (Laura Porter)
Jun 1601:02:50Tap to summarizeThe death penalty is often sold as justice. But what if it's just a very expensive decades-long process, doesn't deter crime, and gets it wrong often enough that 190 people have been exonerated from death row? Amanda sits down with Laura Porter, executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty and former public defender of 12 years, for a conversation that refuses to stay on the surface. They get into the historical roots of America's cultural attachment to capital punishment, why the deterrence argument has been largely debunked, and what evidence-based violence prevention actually looks like in practice. They also ask the harder question underneath all of it: if the goal is a safer society and genuine healing for victims, is the death penalty even aimed at the right target? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →
Fifty Words for Snow
Jun 900:15:39Tap to summarizeAmanda Knox is a multi-linguist and self-described word nerd. In this essay she explores the fascinating world of untranslatable words, the ones that exist in some languages but not others, and what they reveal about the cultures that invented them. And at the end of it all, Amanda makes one of her own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →
Old School: The Canceling of the American Mind (Greg Lukianoff)
Jun 200:53:11Tap to summarizeGreg Lukianoff is one of our nation's foremost defenders of free speech, co-author of "The Canceling of the American Mind," and president of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. His journey to this place wasn’t easy, on a personal level, but the depressive spiral Greg eventually transcended gave him insight into the problems plaguing our public discourse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →
Married to the Work
May 2601:09:26Tap to summarizeWhat happens when your creative partner is also your spouse? Amanda and Chris dive into the messy, rewarding world of creative collaboration,from co-writing a book of love poems to navigating the high-stakes pressure of building a one-woman comedy show headed to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. They get real about the tension between structure and spontaneity, brutal feedback vs. the compliment sandwich, and what it actually means to support someone's creative vision when you don't always agree on what's funny. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →
How To Be A Woman in Public (Sophie Gilbert)
May 1901:00:53Tap to summarizeWhat happens when a culture decides that visibility is power and then punishes women for being visible? Amanda sits down with Sophie Gilbert, staff writer at The Atlantic, and author of Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, for a conversation that gets personal fast. They trace the arc from riot grrrl to the Spice Girls to Britney's breakdown to the Manosphere and make the case that what looks like progress for women has, again and again, been repackaged exploitation. They talk about why objectification got rebranded as empowerment, why reality television taught women that other women are the enemy, and why men are now being sold the same trap women were handed in the early 2000s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →
Walkie Talkies
May 1200:15:03Tap to summarizeIn this monthly Hard Knox essay Amanda explores the "third way of being": not alone, not truly together, but that warm middle state where you want someone near without the obligation of actually meeting them. It's the feeling of knowing your mom is down the hall at 2am. It's reading on the couch while someone cooks in the other room. What begins as a parenting anecdote unfolds into a sharp, philosophical meditation on technology, presence, and why the easiest forms of connection may be quietly eroding our capacity for both real closeness and true aloneness. Best enjoyed with someone nearby who you don't have to talk to. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcribe →