Hotel Bar Sessions

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 some, perhaps impossible, future. On the other hand, something like utopia just might be necessary for political struggles. We begin with Cruising Utopia by José Esteban Muñoz and move on to discuss...

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!) seem resistant to blogging, social media, and other forms of web presence. In this episode, we look at philosophers on the internet. What benefits does the internet bring to philosophy and/or philosophe...

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? We all love musicals! The affective appeal of musical theater is clear, even though there are those (philistines?) who do not find it enjoyable. Although Hegel, in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Fin...

 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 with competing ideas of what the United States is or are. These ideas are based in various ways of knowing including ideological, political, racial, and generational. Using Francis Fukuyama’s essay “Why...

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 what an algorithm is! Algorithms are essential to the logic of late capitalism and people need to understand them in order to work toward more ethical AI. Full episode notes at this link: http://hotelba...

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 other words, metaphysics, is a crucial task for philosophy. We argue about whether metaphysics should come before social and political theory, political engagement, and ethics. We come clean about our o...

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 through the obsession with maintaining youthful looks through diet, exercise or, medical procedure or the hope for a future where people can live on as memories or even as digital intelligences. We talk abo...

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 moral outlook and values, conditions that are not found in nature. What must be the case in order for one to be said to be morally responsible? In this episode, we take Section 13 of Nietzsche's Genea...

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 beginning of knowledge (or the soul’s search for truth), for Augustine, it is what marks post-lapsarian humanity–“Our hears are restless until they rest in you.” For Hobbes, it is one of the root...

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 so, we seem to lose a part (or even all) of our selves. What is the role of memory in the constitution of human intelligence, subjectivity and culture/civilization? In this episode, the HBS hosts dis...

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 hosts discuss the hypothesis that we are just playing out another being's computer simulation. Full episode notes at this link: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-48-the-simulation-hypothesis Supp...

 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 essential, and often seems closely akin to fakery (we can say someone is “all style, no substance”). But is there something more significant about style? Full episode notes at this link : http://hotelbarpod...

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 society, yet at the center of  essential social discussions. Why are we “Hotel bar sessions?” Let’s talk about the role the bar plays at conferences and why we say “this is where the real philosophy...

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 last episode of Season 3, we grill one another through a series of questions. Some are rapid fire with the clock ticking down, some are "would you rather?" questions. And others we take some time to t...

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 drama. The complexity of character, deft use of language, and the themes of the film  interrogate fundamental historical, social and human concerns of American life. Full episode notes at this link: ht...

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, training in critical thinking *should* help to allay superstitions… and, yet, it doesn’t. How important are behaviors to superstitions? Do superstitions require a belief in the supernatural? Are there harmle...

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 said that her secret to living to just so shy of 100 was that she never ate anything green and that she was a “cockeyed optimist.” But it seems as if there are non-personal, non-philosophical senses...

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 power relation within tourism, where the tourist lives a life that allows them to visit the land of the (Fanonian) native. Tourism suggests privilege and power and a shaping of the world that makes a pe...

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 make a resolution, do you have to also have the resolve to carry it through? And what is resolve? In this episode, let’s talk about resolutions and resolve. Full episode notes at this link : WEBSITE: ww...

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 Riley ‘s film Sorry To Bother You   (2018) and what it might be able to tell us about the dystopic situation of the 21st C. worker. Why has it become so important that the worker demonstrate that they “lo...

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 media platforms allow much that is beneficial to individuals, communities, and society. Yet they also allow much that is detrimental or even damaging. What is good about social media? What is bad? And wh...

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, that transcendent reality is thought to be the cause or meaning of our reality. Is this the only kind of transcendence? Do we need transcendence? Perhaps politics and/or justice requires some notion o...

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? And is there such a thing as The Global South? We talk with Prof. Surti Singh, the co-principal investigator of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s project “Extimacies: Critical Theory from the Global...

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 what is legally permissible and what is morally permissible. In this episode, we talk about where that difference should be maintained and where it should be diminished or abolished. Full episode notes...

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, we try to identify what cancelation involves (de-platforming, boycotting, public criticism, shaming), what it doesn’t involve ( actual silencing), and just how common it is (not common enough to cons...