Hotel Bar Sessions

This week, we're joined by scholar, editor, and philosopher, Robin James, to talk about her provocative recent essay entitled “We’re through being Cool: Tech Bros, Manosphere Influencers, Ancient Gre…

Today, there seems to be an intense distrust of experts in all sorts of fields. From medical experts in the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Health and Human Services, to “elite inte…

Hotel Bar Sessions is on it's regular "break" between seasons, but we're offering up these "minibar" sessions from our co-hosts (individually) in in the interim

This week, listen to HBS co-host Talia …

Hotel Bar Sessions is on it's regular "break" between seasons, but we're offering up these "minibar: sessions from our co-hosts (individually) in in the interim

This week, listen to HBS co-host Rick L…

Hotel Bar Sessions is on it's regular "break" between seasons, but we're offering up these "minibar: sessions from our co-hosts (individually) in in the interim

This week, listen to HBS co-host Leigh …

This week, the HBS hosts discuss Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil.

In 1961, Adolf Eichmann was put on trial in Israel for crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish People. T…

In this week’s episode, the HBS hosts talk about positive and negative major life changes.

While change is a part of life, major changes can cause major upheavals in one’s sense of oneself in relation…

We all doomscroll. Often late at night, we scroll through social media or news feeds for a “minute,” which turns into hours. We seem to be chasing bad news. What are we looking for, if anything? What…

Are you even playing the game?

In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, co-hosts Rick Lee, Talia Mae Bettcher, and Leigh M. Johnson dive deep into the meme-turned-metaphor of “NPC Energy,” unpacking its…

Is public philosophy just academic outreach in a new outfit, or is it something else entirely? In this episode, we're joined by Kate Manne (Cornell University) to  ask what happens when philosophers …

What do we mean when we talk about silence? Is it the absence of sound—or something more complicated? In this episode, we dig into the many meanings of silence: as a weapon and as a refuge, as an imp…

 This week, we're unpacking the Trump administration’s war on so-called “radical ideology”—a campaign targeting what it calls “gender ideology” and “equity ideology.” We explore what these terms are …

Who or what rules the world today? And by what right?

In this episode, your favorite philosophers-on-tap—Talia Bettcher, Rick Lee, and Leigh M. Johnson—pull back the curtain on one of political theory…

The central debate this week? Whether interpretation goes “all the way down.” Leigh stakes out a position, arguing that even the simplest acts of clarification are interpretive performances grounded …

Is it time to panic? In this episode, we invite rhetorician Ira Allen to the bar to explore the possibility that, yes, it might be—and that panic isn’t just an irrational breakdown but a vital, even …

How can we talk, or think, about "private parts" in a philosophical way?

In this provocative and unexpectedly tender episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, co-hosts Leigh M. Johnson, Rick Lee, and Talia Mae B…

Can the University be saved? Should it be saved? 

In this sobering and timely episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, co-hosts Leigh M. Johnson, Rick Lee, and Talia Mae Bettcher tackle the existential crisis f…

In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, your favorite philosophical trio—Leigh Johnson, Rick Lee, and Talia Bettcher—dive headfirst into the squirmy, complicated world of cringe. From wedding speeches…

Sean Kirkland unpacks living on the edge of "was" and "not yet."

What if time isn’t just something we move through—but something that shapes us, wounds us, and makes us who we are? In this episode of …

In this season-opening episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, Rick Lee and Leigh Johnson welcome new co-host Talia Mae Bettcher, a leading voice in trans philosophy and feminist theory, to dive into the dece…