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Hard Knox with Amanda Knox

Knox Robinson Productions

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.

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20 episodes
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Avg 48 min
English

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September 22 · 43 min
Old School: First, Do No Harm (Richard Pallardy)
Despite the best efforts of healthcare professionals, medical errors are responsible for tens of thousands of annual deaths. Today, Richard Pallardy, a freelance writer from Chicago, tells us the story of the medical odyssey his mother went through in the fall of 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 8 · 1 hr 12 min
Why We Turn Our Worst Moments Into Punchlines (Jamie Kilstein)
Amanda met comedian Jamie Kilstein at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and found an unlikely kindred spirit. Both arrived at Fringe to prove themselves, battle misconceptions, and reclaim their narratives through art. Both know what it's like to have the world decide who you are before you get a chance to speak. Kilstein was a prominent progressive stand-up comedian and co-host of the political podcast Citizen Radio, with a rising career and appearances at major comedy festivals. In 2015 he was publicly accused of emotional manipulation and infidelity, losing his audience, career, and platform almost overnight. In this conversation recorded between fringe festival shows, Amanda and Jamie dig into cancellation, community, betrayal, and the terrifying vulnerability of performing your worst moments on stage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 25 · 46 min
Old School: Zen and the Art of Emergency (Kat Moore)
The emergency room and the ICU are not just emotionally draining and traumatic environments for patients, but for healthcare workers as well. ER doctor Kat Moore tells us how Zen Buddhism is working its way into emergency rooms to improve the wellbeing of both patients and doctors. Learn more about the Contemplative Medicine Fellowship at: https://zencare.org/contemplative-medicine-fellowship/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 18 · 33 min
Creative Aftermath
When you finally deliver a creative project you've been working on for a long time, how do you cope with the emotional hangover, how do you make space to reflect, and how do you give yourself grace to not have the answers or know what's next? Amanda and Chris reflect the day after the final performance of her sold out run of Cartwheel, her one-woman show, at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 11 · 1 hr 4 min
Why Unreasonable Women Go to Prison (Justine van der Leun)
What happens when fighting for your life becomes a crime? Why are thousands of women and girls who defend themselves against violence prosecuted as offenders, sometimes for life. Amanda sits down with journalist Justine van der Leun to discuss her new book Unreasonable Women which investigates "criminalized survival". They dig into the "reasonable man" standard, the believability problem facing survivors, and why the legal system seems built to disbelieve women even when the evidence is overwhelming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 28 · 55 min
Old School: The Modern Trauma Toolkit (Christine Gibson)
"Trauma" has become a controversial word in the current culture wars. It's a point of pride for some, an excuse for others. But trauma is undoubtedly real, and it effects the body. Dr. Christy Gibson, author of The Modern Trauma Toolkit, has studied the neurophysiological effects of trauma and how we can alter the body's reflexive responses to find post-traumatic growth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 14 · 1 hr 3 min
How to Hack Your Brain's Moral Code (Joshua Greene)
What 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
July 9 · 16 min
Humor as Catharsis
As 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
June 30 · 52 min
Old School: The Outlaw (Seth Ferranti)
Seth 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
June 23 · 48 min
Good News Bad News
Amanda 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
June 16 · 1 hr 2 min
Why Fear Makes Bad Policy (Laura Porter)
The 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
June 9 · 15 min
Fifty Words for Snow
Amanda 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
June 2 · 53 min
Old School: The Canceling of the American Mind (Greg Lukianoff)
Greg 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
May 26 · 1 hr 9 min
Married to the Work
What 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
May 19 · 1 hr
How To Be A Woman in Public (Sophie Gilbert)
What 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
May 12 · 15 min
Walkie Talkies
In 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
May 5 · 59 min
Old School: Monsters (Claire Dederer)
We are now routinely faced with a dilemma: News breaks hat an artist beloved has done something horrible. How does that change our experience of their art? There’s no one better to help us explore this thorny territory than Claire Dederer, author of "Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma." Get a copy of Claire's book at: https://www.powells.com/book/monsters-9780525655114 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 28 · 44 min
The Myth of Confrontation
What happens when confronting the person who hurt you doesn’t bring the closure you hoped for? In this episode, Amanda responds to a listener wrestling with whether to confront an abusive family member and what to do when that conversation goes nowhere. Drawing from her own experience facing her former prosecutor, she unpacks the crucial difference between healing and accountability, and why tying your recovery to someone else’s response can set you up for deeper pain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 21 · 1 hr 6 min
Why Men Need a Tribe (Elliott Ackerman)
Elliot Ackerman is a decorated combat veteran, CIA paramilitary officer, and New York Times bestselling novelist. In this episode, he joins Amanda Knox to talk about what happens when the chapter closes and you have to figure out who you are without the tribe. They get into the Afghanistan withdrawal, institutional betrayal, what it actually means to raise boys well. And from his What a Man Should Know column on The Free Press, learn why men make friends shoulder to shoulder instead of face to face, and what gets lost when nobody talks to boys with intention. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 14 · 15 min
A Wee Existential Crisis
What do you do when the thing that gave your life shape is finally, imperfectly, done? In this solo episode, Amanda Knox reads an original essay about arriving at the other side of an eighteen-year fight for her own story. She writes about motherhood, the fear of being called a narcissist for mining her own trauma, Bo Burnham, and the stubborn suspicion that measuring yourself against the worst thing that ever happened to you might be exactly the wrong way to keep score. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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