Hotel Bar Sessions

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 Southern Maine) joins us to examine the Boots Rile…

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 better, sometimes this is for the worse. Social med…

The HBS hosts talk about transcendence, the good kind and the bad kind.

Philosophers traditionally have thought of entities like God or Ideas as outside of or other than this world. At the same time, …

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? What tools can theory bring to the global south? …

The HBS host discuss the criminal justice system’s failure to produce morally right outcomes.

The "not guilty" verdicts in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial made plain the often dramatic difference between w…

The HBS hosts discuss so-called “cancel culture” and the panic surrounding it.

For some, “canceling” is an essential tool of social justice. For others, it is a threat to free speech. In this episode,…

The HBS hosts discuss the pedagogical pros and cons of thoughts experiments.

Philosophy has its own laboratory! While it doesn’t have graduated cylinders or Bunsen burners, it is a “clean room” in whi…

 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 million of them live in the United States of Americ…

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 very contentious political debate over the teachin…

The HBS hosts discuss how robots and intelligent machines are upending our social, moral, legal, and philosophical categories.

For this last episode of Season 2, the HBS hosts interview Dr. David Gunk…

The HBS hosts present their best defense of humanities-based education and, in doing so, try to justify their existences.

As higher education has become more corporatized and STEM-focused, areas of st…

The HBS hosts discuss whether or not generational tags– “Boomer,” “GenX,” “Millennial,” and “Gen Z”– are useful descriptions or just gerrymandered groups.

Are you Gen Z, a Boomer, Gen X? We don’t know…

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. (aka, T.I.) "If you don't respect nothing else, you…

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 music in our lives. After a quick run-down of each…

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 towards 1 million, it's easy to forget the other public…

The HBS hosts discuss academic specializations and how to make the humanities more inclusive.

Over the last several decades, there has been a long-overdue push for professors in the humanities to dive…

The HBS hosts discuss the role of superheroes in culture and popular media. 

In American graphic fiction and contemporary film, the superhero stands at the center of many popular narratives. Superhero…

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 more so afterwards, the U.S. found itself inunda…

 The HBS hosts discuss conspiracy theories and what motivates people to believe in them. 

The word "conspiracy" derives from the Latin con- ("with" or "together") and spirare ("to breathe"), and it se…

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 vulgarity. What is the difference between obscenity, prof…