Hotel Bar Sessions
Episodes
The Simulation Hypothesis
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts take the red pill.Are we "living" in a computer simulation? What difference would that make? Why would it ever occur to anyone that we a...
Style
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts talk about style. Style can simply mean a way of doing something, like dressing, decorating, writing, singing, painting. Often, it see...
Bars
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts go where people know troubles are all the same.In this episode, the HBS hosts discuss Bars—as a social, cultural and communal space, b...
Turning Up the Heat
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts take turns in the "hot seat" as they fire questions at one another.Can we be honest? Each week the HBS hosts say that one of us is in th...
The Godfather Trilogy
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss The Godfather Trilogy.The Godfather and The God Father: Part II often make it to lists of the best films. It can be argued The G...
Superstition
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss the nature, origin, and deployment of superstitions.It seems as if superstitions just evidence a misunderstanding of the relatio...
Optimism and Pessimism
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts talk about optimism and pessimism in its personal, political, and philosophical senses.We tend to think of optimism and pessimism as per...
Tourism
14 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss the ugly underside of tourism.Tourism is a superficial activity that has deep historical and political underpinnings. In A Small...
Resolve
07 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts talk about resolutions and the resolve behind them.It is close to the start of a new year and at this time resolutions are in the air. B...
Work
31 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts sit down with Dr. Jason Read to talk about how to understand work in the 21st C.In this episode, Jason Read (Philosophy, University of S...
Social Media
24 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of social media.Social media dominate much of our current lives. Sometimes this is for the be...
Transcendence
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts talk about transcendence, the good kind and the bad kind.Philosophers traditionally have thought of entities like God or Ideas as outsid...
The Global South
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss philosophy and theory in relation to the global south with Prof. Surti Singh.We does it mean to theorize from the Global South? ...
Legally Right, Morally Wrong
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS host discuss the criminal justice system’s failure to produce morally right outcomes.The "not guilty" verdicts in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial...
Cancel Panic
26 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss so-called “cancel culture” and the panic surrounding it.For some, “canceling” is an essential tool of social justice. Fo...
Thought Experiments
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss the pedagogical pros and cons of thoughts experiments.Philosophy has its own laboratory! While it doesn’t have graduated cylin...
American Christianity
12 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts wonder whether there is a uniquely "American" form of Christianity. There are more than 2.3 billion Christians in the world, and 205 ...
Whose History?
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts sit down with Dr. Charles McKinney, Jr. to talk about whose history is (and isn't) being taught.Following on the heels of a recent and v...
Robots
08 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss how robots and intelligent machines are upending our social, moral, legal, and philosophical categories.For this last episode of...
Defending the Humanities
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts present their best defense of humanities-based education and, in doing so, try to justify their existences.As higher education has becom...
Generations
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss whether or not generational tags– “Boomer,” “GenX,” “Millennial,” and “Gen Z”– are useful descriptions or ju...
The Hustle
17 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss scams, cons, gig work, and what drives us to live and work at full speed.In the immortal words of Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr. (a...
Music
10 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts talk about music, mathematics, groove, and "altar calls."Dr. Charles Peterson takes the lead in this week's discussion of the power of m...
Guns
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts try to figure out why there are 150 guns for every 100 Americans.In the midst of a pandemic, as COVID-related deaths creep closer toward...
Specialization
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss academic specializations and how to make the humanities more inclusive.Over the last several decades, there has been a long-over...
Superheroes
20 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss the role of superheroes in culture and popular media. In American graphic fiction and contemporary film, the superhero stands a...
White Working Class
13 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts take a critical look at the white working class and their grievances.Leading up to the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, and even...
Conspiracy Theories
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss conspiracy theories and what motivates people to believe in them. The word "conspiracy" derives from the Latin con- ("with" o...
Vulgarity
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts lower themselves into the muck in this NSFW episode.Dr. Charles F. Peterson is in the hot seat for this episode’s discussion of vulgar...
Laughter
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In advance of Rick Lee’s forthcoming book on laughter, co-hosts Charles and Leigh ask him why he thinks all “theories” of comedy are inadequate....
Digital Afterlives
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Co-host Leigh M. Johnson is in the hot seat for this episode's discussion of digital afterlives. If we consider the "digital," information-based self ...
Citizenship
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This episode explores the political and ethical dimensions of the category of “citizen”. In anticipation of his soon-to-be-released book Beyond Ci...
Private Cities
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts discuss how cities, once considered hubs of public life and interaction, have become increasingly segregated, partitioned, disconnected,...
Hey, Biden!
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Shame
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Teaching
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
WhoDunnIt?
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is the world in itself a mystery that science and philosophy take different routes to try to solve? How do luck, logic, empirical investigation, and i...
Privacy
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Love
30 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts talk about love. What is love? Is it a feeling? Is it a cosmic or metaphysical force? Is it a primary motivating drive to propagate the ...
The Philosophical Canon
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Apocalypse(s)
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts chat about our impending doom. Is the apocalypse nigh? Will it be environmental, political, technological, or biological? Can we imaging...
Nostalgia
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The HBS hosts take a look at the political, philosophical, cultural, and personal dimensions of nostalgia. Full episode notes at this link. ★ S...
Metrics
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For Episode 6, the HBS hosts take a look at several of the metrics by which we are rated and ranked. We talk about grading, student evaluations, the P...
One Year with COVID
26 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For Episode 5, the HBS hosts consider the last year living with COVID: what can we not believe that we did before COVID? what can't we wait to get bac...
Origins
19 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For Episode 4, the HBS hosts look into the stories we tell, whether or not they are true, and what happens when those stories fall apart. Specifically...
Leigh M. Johnson on Technology
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For Episode 3, Leigh M. Johnson is in the hot seat to explain why philosophers should be thinking more about emergent technologies. Co-hosts Shannon a...
Ammon Allred on Art
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For Episode 2, Ammon Allred is in the hot seat to explain how thinking about aesthetic experience more seriously can free us from the hold of normativ...
Shannon M. Mussett on Freedom
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For our first episode of HBS, Shannon Mussett is in the hot seat to explain how the existentialist conception of freedom remains useful and important ...