Hotel Bar Sessions

How might "oppression" be best understood as a "cage"? This week the HBS co-hosts take a deep dive into a true classic of feminist philosophy: Marilyn Frye’s 1983 article “ Oppression .” We unpack Frye’s understanding of oppression and argue about some of Frye’s more infamous examples, such as her claim that men holding doors open for women is sexist. Is she really correct that oppression can occu...

"Nostalgia" is a portmanteau coined in 1688 by Johannes Hofer , combining the Greek nostros (homecoming) and algos (pain, ache).  Hofer was a medical student, and he invented this term to describe a kind of melancholia, a somewhat depressive state–- and so, from its inception, "nostalgia" was viewed as a mood disorder.  For the Romantics, it was a sentimentality for the past, the good old days of...

Bad arguments are nothing new, so why does it appear as if they have become so pervasive in public discourse?  When we watch so-called "debate" videos with titles like "Conservative professor DESTROYS woke student" or "Liberal pundit OWNS Conservative Senator," are we actually watching a rational debate? Is anyone learning anything in these exchanges? Or, as is most likely, are we watching the per...

This week’s episode takes Cory Doctorow’s term “enshittification” and uses it as a diagnostic for late-capitalist life, not just for tech platforms but for democracy, higher education, and work more broadly. Our co-hosts unpack Doctorow’s three-stage model—platforms start out good to users, then pivot to serving business customers, and finally squeeze both users and customers to extract maximum va...

Many of us think of resistance as "protest," communicative acts aimed at fighting injustice, and done with others in public. But what happens when that kind of resistance isn’t possible or safe? When showing up, or waving a sign, or making a public speech might get you jailed, or silenced, or disappeared? Is it possible to resist oppression without following Western scripts surrounding protest? Th...

What does it mean to be “well-adjusted” in a society that might itself be profoundly unwell? And when we use therapy-speak to explain everything from bad relationships to bad politics, do we risk losing sight of moral responsibility for bad behavior altogether? Is self-knowledge even possible in a world built on historical and political denial? Grab a drink, get comfortable, and join us for a litt...

This week’s episode of Hotel Bar Sessions brings political theorist Laura K. Field (author of Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right ) into the bar to talk about the intellectuals cranking the rhetoric up to eleven while insisting they’re just “doing Great Books.” We follow the trail from Straussian seminar rooms and conservative think tanks to Trump rallies and “no kings” protests, askin...

The imagination has regularly been subordinated to  so-called "rational" or "scientific" models of thought. This week, we're joined by Stephen T. Asma (Columbia College, Chicago), who argues that imagination has deep, perhaps pre-linguistic, roots that ought to be recovered. What if we re-centered the powers of imagination, rooted in imagistic thinking and bodily gestures (like dance), instead of...

This week’s episode of Hotel Bar Sessions on the topic of comedy is a gut buster,  not least because one of your co-hosts pretends to be a stand-up comedian at night-- the only job for a philosopher that pays less than being an adjunct professor!  Comedy is a historically and philosophically rich topic, starting with primitive hominids drawing penises on cave walls. Our cohosts' begin with Plato,...

How do we choose the "hills" that we're willing to die on? Are we actually willing to DIE on them? If not, what would it take to convince us to climb back down the hill and compromise? This week , our co-hosts are digging deep into the question of our "deepest commitments," trying to find where there is room for compromise, and where the lines we draw are ultimately un-crossable. Full episode note...

How do we choose the "hills" that we're willing to die on? Are we actually willing to DIE on them? If not, what would it take to convince us to climb back down the hill and compromise? This week , our co-hosts are digging deep into the question of our "deepest commitments," trying to find where there is room for compromise, and where the lines we draw are ultimately un-crossable. Full episode note...

What does it mean to speak of eternity ? Is eternity best understood as infinite time, stretching endlessly forward and backward, or as something wholly outside of time—a changeless, timeless "eternal now"?  In this episode, the hosts wrestle with these competing conceptions, drawing on philosophy, theology, and personal experience to ask whether eternity is a thinkable concept or a regulative ide...

What makes the difference between a crowd singing in unison at a concert and a mob storming the gates of power?  In this episode, the hosts take listeners into the messy, unpredictable space where solidarity teeters on the edge of chaos. They unpack how naming a gathering as a “mob” is never neutral—it does political work, shaping both public perception and police response. From the joyful swell o...

When we make choices, are these choices free? That is, are we able to choose one thing over another, to do one thing rather than another, independent of the laws of physics, including the biology and chemistry of our bodies and brains? Or are all of our choices determined by processes that could, in theory, be traced back to deterministic causes, if only we had enough information? Whether we are f...

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 Greek Masculinity, and AI,” posted at James' blog, It’s Her Factory .  When we think about "cool," we think about effortless, confident, style... but being cool has always been about more than style. It’...

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 intellectuals” at Universities and Colleges, no one who has expertise is beyond suspicion. We hear that we should “do our own research” and not trust what those with training and knowledge tell us. What ma...

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 Mae Bettcher talk about her recent run-in with cancer, and the long, dark night of the soul it inspired. Full episode notes available at this link : https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/cancer --------...

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 Lee talk about what metaphysics really is, how it's often misunderstood, and why it's so important. Full episode notes available at this link : https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/in-defense-of-metaphy...

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 M. Johnson talk about what it's like to live in "occupied" D.C. as a new resident. Full episode notes available at this link : https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/living-in-occupied-dc ---------------...

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. The philosopher Hannah Arendt covered the trial for The New Yorker. Her articles were collected in the book Eichmann in Jerusalem, which had the subtitle, A Report on the Banality of Evil. What did she...

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 to the world. Indeed, they may teach us to perceive life anew. What might such changes show us, if anything, about traditional philosophical concepts such as the self, the good life, autonomy, and re...

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 do we hope to get out of it? Is this a bad habit, or are there good aspects to it? Doomscrolling just might be changing our sense of time, of responsibility, and of witnessing. So put down your phones...

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 cultural roots and existential weight. Originally a gaming term describing non-player characters who move on rails and repeat scripted lines, “NPC Energy” has become a way to call out people who see...

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 leave their usual habitats and try to meet people where they actually live. We talk about the push to be legible outside the profession, the risk of being dismissed inside it, and the slippery politics...

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 imposed condition and a chosen strategy. We consider the roles silence plays in protest, punishment, pedagogy, intimacy, and oppression, and ask whether some kinds of silence can speak louder than words....