Hotel Bar Sessions

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. What exactly is the “joke” part of a joke? Is comedy f…

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 to be distinguishable from the meatspace self, we…

This episode explores the political and ethical dimensions of the category of “citizen”. In anticipation of his soon-to-be-released book Beyond Civil Disobedience: Social Nullification and Black Citi…

The HBS hosts discuss how cities, once considered hubs of public life and interaction, have become increasingly segregated, partitioned, disconnected, and privatized.

Drawing on his experience using t…

Full episode notes at this link. 

Full episode notes at this link. 

Full episode notes at this link. 

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 intuition all work together to make sense of the w…

Full episode notes at this link. 

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 species or to create ideas? What happens when lov…

Full episode notes at this link. 

The HBS hosts chat about our impending doom. Is the apocalypse nigh? Will it be environmental, political, technological, or biological? Can we imaging human beings existing in 50 years? 100 years? 50…

The HBS hosts take a look at the political, philosophical, cultural, and personal dimensions of nostalgia.

Full episode notes at this link. 

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 Philosophical Gourmet Report (in professional Phil…

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 back to doing? and what do we hope we never go back …

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, they discuss the various ways that origins are …

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 and Ammon make her seat hotter with questions abou…

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 normativity. Co-hosts Leigh and Shannon make his seat hot…

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 for Philosophy. Co-hosts Ammon and Leigh make her…