Anti-‘woke’ psychologist and author Jordan Peterson to speak in St. Paul

Controversial Canadian psychologist, author and media commentator Jordan Peterson will speak at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center on Jan. 27.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday through Ticketmaster. Neither the venue nor the promoter announced prices, but Ticketmaster’s website shows seats starting at $61.15 and VIP packages as high as $609.

Peterson, 62, is touring to promote his upcoming book “We Who Wrestle with God,” which is due out Nov. 19. According to the publisher, Peterson “guides us through the ancient, foundational stories of the Western world … (and) analyzes the Biblical accounts of rebellion, sacrifice, suffering and triumph that stabilize, inspire and unite us culturally and psychologically.”

A self-described “classic British liberal and traditionalist,” Peterson formerly taught psychology at Harvard University and the University of Toronto. He began to attract attention beyond academia in 2016 when he released a series of YouTube videos that attacked a proposed bill by the Canadian parliament that banned discrimination against people on the basis of “gender identity” or “gender expression.”

In the time since, Peterson has become a prolific social media user across several platforms. Political correctness and “woke” culture, climate change denial and the “crisis of masculinity” are among the topics he’s known to discuss. He’s got 8.33 million subscribers on YouTube and 5.6 million followers on X, formerly Twitter.

Earlier this year, Peterson co-founded Peterson Academy, an online higher education platform. According to his publicist, more than 30,000 students have enrolled since the beta launched in September 2024 with an annual tuition fee of $499.99.