Hotel Bar Sessions

The HBS hosts chat with Dr. Ladelle McWhorter about the evolution of "queer" as an identity category and a verb.

Once only used as a slur with unambiguously negative valences, the noun "queer" has bee…

The HBS hosts discuss the where, when, and how of utopic imagination.

On the one hand, utopia as an ideal place, space, political arrangement, or future has been criticized because it delays action to…

The HBS hosts sit down with Justin Weinberg of the Daily Nous to talk about philosophers on the internet.

While everyone is on the internet, many philosophers (some of whom may be on this podcast!) se…

The HBS hosts chat with actor, dancer, and choreographer Blake Zolfo about what makes musical theater so unique.

What could possibly make musical theater important or relevant to three philosophers? W…

 The HBS hosts wrestle with Fukuyama's "Why National Identity Is Matters." 

In this episode, we will focus on questions of national identity. In the U.S., the contemporary political moment is riven wi…

The HBS hosts discuss the pervasiveness and perversity of algorithms in our lives.

Algorithms measure, and increasingly influence/determine, our behaviors. Yet, most people don’t know or understand wh…

The HBS hosts get to the bottom of what is real, what exists, and what is virtual.

In this episode, we take head on the question of whether an analysis, understanding, and assumption of reality, in ot…

The HBS hosts talk about the striving to live forever in physical, psychical, and social dimensions.

Immortality seems to be a spoken and unspoken obsession within contemporary culture, whether throug…

The HBS hosts unpack Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, Section 13, to uncover how we arrived at morality and moral subjectivity. 

There are conditions that seem to be necessary in order for our whole m…

The HBS hosts look under the hood, inspect the engine, and try to figure out what drives us. 

Perhaps more than any other affect, desire is put to work in so many areas of philosophy. For Plato, it is…

The HBS hosts discuss the role of memory in the constitution of human intelligence, subjectivity and culture/civilization.

As we age, we often lose the ability to retain our past experiences. In doing…

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 are in a simulation? In this episode, the HBS host…

 The HBS hosts talk about style.

Style can simply mean a way of doing something, like dressing, decorating, writing, singing, painting. Often, it seems as if style is an “add on,” something not essen…

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, bars as a space removed from the regular function of…

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 the "hot seat." But they never get "grilled." This …

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 Godfather is America’s response to Shakespearean d…

The HBS hosts discuss the nature, origin, and deployment of superstitions.

It seems as if superstitions just evidence a misunderstanding of the relation between some cause and some effect. So, trainin…

The HBS hosts talk about optimism and pessimism in its personal, political, and philosophical senses.

We tend to think of optimism and pessimism as personal, psychological characteristics. Betty White…

The HBS hosts discuss the ugly underside of tourism.

Tourism is a superficial activity that has deep historical and political underpinnings. In A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid argues highlights the pow…

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. But what is it to make a resolution? And if you ma…