Explore every episode of the podcast Hotel Bar Sessions
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| REPLAY: The Master/Slave Dialectic | 07 Sep 2024 | 00:55:03 | |
The HBS hosts struggle for recognition. [NOTE: This is a REPLAY episode, first aired on August 11, 2023. The HBS hosts will be back with new episodes for Season 11 starting on September 13, 2024!] The dialectic of lordship and bondage, more commonly known as the “Master/Slave dialectic,” is a moment in a much longer and exceedingly difficult-to-read (much less understand!) text by G.W.F. Hegel entitled The Phenomenology of Spirit. It’s probably a passage that is referenced in a wide number of fields– psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, literary analysis, any number of “area studies,” and even economics-- though very few of the scholars who reference it have slogged all the way through Hegel’s Phenomenology. Nevertheless, like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave from the Republic and Nietzsche’s story about the lambs and the birds of prey from Genealogy of Morals, both of which we’ve discussed before on this podcast, Hegel’s dialectic of Lordship and Bondage manages to capture, in a concise and powerful way, something both intuitively true and yet, at the same time, utterly mystifying. This week we ask the question, why has this passage become the hit single off of the dense concept album that is the Phenomenology. Full episode notes available at this link: ------------------- Follow us on Twitter @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, and subscribe to our YouTube channel! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| REPLAY: Punching Nazis (with Devin Shaw) | 30 Aug 2024 | 00:55:15 | |
The HBS hosts ask Devin Shaw whether and how to punch Nazis. [NOTE: This is a REPLAY episode, first aired on Jun2, 2023. The HBS hosts will be back with new episodes for Season 11 starting on September 13, 2024!] Since at least the 2016 election the word fascism has emerged from the historical archive to contemporary political debates. This question has primarily been one about the identity of fascism, what are its minimal characteristics? To what extent can the Trump administration be considered fascist, and so on? We discussed some of this last season with Alberto Toscano. As much as this question of definition is important, a no less important question is what to do in the face of fascism. How to respond. It is on this point that the opposition to fascism divides rather sharply between those who argue that fascism must be countered with the norms of civil society, debated, discussed and defeated in the marketplace of ideas and those who argue that the violence of fascism must be met with counter-violence. In this episode, we are joined by Devin Shaw, who teaches at Douglas College and is the author of Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy. ------------------- You can also help keep this podcast going by supporting us financially at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Ideology | 28 Jun 2024 | 00:55:20 | |
What, if anything, is the difference between having ideological commitments and belonging to a "cult"? This week's episode is a "deep dive" into the very deep waters of ideology and ideological commitments. A couple of important notes for listeners: first, this episode was recorded the day before William Clare-Roberts' excellent essay "Ideology and Emancipation: Voluntary Servitude, False Consciousness, and the Career of Critical Social Theory" was published. (We promise to do our level best to get him on the podcast for a Part 2 of this "Ideology" series!) Second, we are VERY excited to announce our new partnership with Edinburgh University Press, which is not only sponsoring this episode, but a number of other HBS episodes this season! EUP has generously offered our listeners a discount on their current catalog, so be sure to enter the discount code "HBS" when you buy books on their website! Full episode notes (and they are HEFTY) available at this link: ------------------- Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel! | |||
| The Blues (with Charles L. Hughes) | 05 Aug 2022 | 01:02:57 | |
The HBS hosts ask Dr. Charles Hughes for water, and he gives them gasoline. In this episode, the HBS co-hosts discuss these questions (and more!) with Dr. Charles L. Hughes, Director of the The Lynne and Henry Turley Memphis Center | Rhodes College, where he designs courses, programs, and partnerships. His acclaimed first book, Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South was named one of the Best Music Books of 2015 by Rolling Stone and No Depression, one of Paste Magazine’s Best Nonfiction Books of the Year, and one of Slate’s “Overlooked Books” of 2015. He has published essays and given numerous talks in front of a range of audiences, including featured engagements at the Center for Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library & Archives. He is currently working on a book about the history of African-Americans and professional wrestling in the United States, as well as several articles. He is a voter for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a participant in the Nashville Scene’s Year-End Country Music Poll. His most recent book is Why Bushwick Bill Matters. BONUS: this episode comes with its own Spotify playlist! Full episode notes available at this link: ------------------ | |||
| Memes (with Andrew Baron) | 29 Jul 2022 | 01:02:54 | |
The HBS hosts try to go viral with Andrew Baron, creator of KnowYourMeme. Memes: if you get them, you get them... and if you don't, you don't. But how is a meme created? How does it spread? And how does it die? In this episode, we dig into the complex dynamics of memes-- on Dawkins' account, the most rudimentary units of social information-- to see how they do (and don't) imitate so-called "natural" processes in their generation, mutation, adaptation, and replication. With our special guest, Andrew Baron (creator of Rocketboom and KnowYourMeme), we also investigate what, if anything, distinguishes an "internet meme" from other kinds of memes, and how internet memes may provide a unique insight into social operations and cultural formations. Full episode notes at this link: ------------------ | |||
| Reason | 22 Jul 2022 | 00:55:05 | |
The HBS hosts investigate the limits of Reason alone and, more importantly, in real human history. Many, rightly, understand the discipline of Philosophy as primarily defined by its commitment to Reason. But, what is “Reason”? Is it universal? Is it some kind of fundamental human capacity that transcends class, culture, politics, religion, or any other iteration of human difference? What do we make of the fact that, since the 17th C., inheritors of “European Enlightenment” thinkers unilaterally dictated the scope and limits of Reason for a broad swath of the world’s inhabitants? Because, let’s be honest, the legacy of “European Enlightenment thinkers” is a complex and often ugly one. In this episode, the HBS hosts try, at once, to both defend the privileged place that Reason has been afforded in Western Philosophy and to critique the capitalist / imperialist / colonialist logics to which that legacy has been put to use. Full episode notes at this link: ------------------ | |||
| Plagiarism | 15 Jul 2022 | 01:04:30 | |
The HBS hosts attempt to measure the real stakes of cheating. According to a recent study, almost 60% of college/university students in the United States admit to having cheated at least once during their studies. Around 15% of U.S. students admit to plagiarizing intentionally and, of those, less than 1 in 5 is caught or punished for academic dishonesty. Professors regularly report that cheating and plagiarism is on the rise; many blame remote learning for what feels like a "plagiarism pandemic." Meanwhile, plagiarism detection software has become BIG business, coercing academics to spend almost as much time surveilling and policing as they do researching and teaching. Who does this new, more martial and antagonistic focus on plagiarism help? And who does it hurt? In this episode, we get to the root of higher education's commitment to academic integrity and its increasingly pathological obsession with cheating. Full episode notes at this link: ------------------ | |||
| The Public Intellectual (with Eddie Glaude, Jr.) | 08 Jul 2022 | 01:03:29 | |
The HBS hosts sit down with Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr. to talk about what constitutes a "public intellectual." Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr. is the James S. McDonnel Distinguished University Professor and Chair of the Department of African-American Studies at Princeton University, and one of America's leading public intellectuals. He is also on the Morehouse College Board of Trustees. He frequently appears in the media, as a columnist for TIME Magazine and as an MSNBC contributor on programs like Morning Joe and Deadline Whitehouse with Nicolle Wallace. He also regularly appears on Meet the Press on Sundays. Combining a scholar's knowledge of history, a political commentator's take on the latest events, and an activist's passion for social justice, Glaude challenges all of us to examine our collective American conscience. Full episode notes at this link: ------------------ | |||
| Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics | 17 Jun 2022 | 00:57:19 | |
The HBS hosts try to get to the truth of untruths. Mark Twain famously claimed that there are three kinds of untruth: lies, damned lies, and statistics. In an age of widespread misinformation, where it has become considerably more difficult to distinguish between truths and lies, the HBS hosts make an impassioned plea for us to think seriously about what a lie is, what it is not, and why it matters. We consider the whole menagerie of falsehoods: from trifling fibs ("you look great in those pants!") to catastrophic lies ("the only the thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun") to seemingly antiseptic, but no less dissimulating, statistical misrepresentations. This is our last episode of Season 4 and we want to send out a huge THANK YOU to all of our listeners! We'll be taking a couple of weeks off to detox, but Charles, Rick, and Leigh will be back with an exciting new slate of topics and guests for Season 5 starting on July 8! Full episode notes at this link: ---------------- FOLLOW Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/hotelbarpodcast | |||
| Queers (with Ladelle McWhorter) | 10 Jun 2022 | 00:56:58 | |
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 been reappropriated by (many) members of the LGBTQIA+ community as referring to a positive, even celebrated, notion of self-identity.... but the history of the term "queer" is complicated. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Ladelle McWhorter (University of Richmond) about that complicated history, including how "queer" as a social/political identity category may (or may not?) be in tension with its philosophical/theoretical use, including and especially the notion of "queer-ing" (verb) to indicate the very disruption of stable categories of identity themselves. Our guest for this episode, Dr. Ladelle McWhorter, is the author of Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Sexual Normalization (1999), Racism and Sexual Oppression in Anglo-America: A Genealogy (2009), and Heidegger and the Earth Essays in Environmental Philosophy (2009). You can follow Dr. McWhorter on Twitter at @lmcwhort! Full episode notes available at this link: ---------------- FOLLOW Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/hotelbarpodcast LIKE Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/hotelbarsess... VISIT the Hotel Bar Sessions webpage here: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Utopia | 03 Jun 2022 | 00:57:41 | |
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 importance, problems, and possibilities of utopia. Full episode notes at this link: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-58-utopia ---------------- FOLLOW Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/hotelbarpodcast LIKE Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/hotelbarsess... VISIT the Hotel Bar Sessions webpage here: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Philosophers on the Internet | 27 May 2022 | 00:56:24 | |
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 philosophers? Is the internet our new “town square?” If so, should philosophy be brought to the town square? Another way to ask that is “should there be public philosophy?” and/or “should all philosophy be public?”. What are some better practices for being a philosopher online? Who are our favorite philosophers online and what are our favorite sites, Twitter accounts, YouTube channels, etc.? This week we are joined by Justin Weinberg, philosopher and creator/editor of The Daily Nous. Full episode notes at this link: ---------------- FOLLOW Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/hotelbarpodcast LIKE Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/hotelbarsess... VISIT the Hotel Bar Sessions webpage here: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Musical Theater | 20 May 2022 | 01:02:09 | |
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 Fine Art claims that opera puts text in the service of music, he also recognizes that the libretto of opera is the sole contributor of ideas, and therefore of properly human freedom. In musical theater, it might be that the situation is reversed: music is put in the service of the text. The HBS hosts are joined by Blake Zolfo (@blakezolfo on the socials) to talk about musical theater. Full episode notes at this link: Support Hotel Bar Sessions on Patreon here: | |||
| Generative AI | 21 Jun 2024 | 00:56:06 | |
The HBS hosts wonder whether ChatGPT is the least of our worries. Generative Ai is a still new and emergent technology capable of producing not only text that could be mistaken as human-generated, but also images, video, music, and "voice." For all of the amazing opportunities opened up by generative AI, however, it does not come without its own risks. Secondary and post-secondary education, for example, was thrown into crisis in late 2022 when ChatGPT was released, and is still weathering that storm. Meanwhile, other AI models, known as "diffusion models" (which generate audio, images and video) have also been getting more sophisticated at a lightning pace. Yet, the average internet user has very little knowledge of how generative AI works, and far less the skills to distinguish its outputs from human-generated content. Especially in an election year, should we worry about the circulation of products that generative AI models generate? What are the implications of the rapid and wide-spread proliferation of fake news and deepfakes? How do we guard against the "feedback loop" problem in generative AI learning models? This week, we try to explain and de-mystify generative AI in order to get to the root of what we should be concerned about and what we shouldn't. Full episode notes at this link: ------------------- Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| National Identity | 13 May 2022 | 01:01:47 | |
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 National Identity Matters” we will explore fundamental questions regarding the origins of national identity, its definition, its mechanisms, and how these elements track through a contemporary lens. Full episode notes at this link: Support Hotel Bar Sessions on Patreon here: | |||
| Algorithms | 06 May 2022 | 01:02:14 | |
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: Support Hotel Bar Sessions on Patreon here: | |||
| Metaphysics | 29 Apr 2022 | 00:55:43 | |
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 own positions on what is real. In short, we get real with reality. Full episode notes at this link: Support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon at this link: | |||
| Immortality | 22 Apr 2022 | 00:53:55 | |
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 about the underlying motivations for this hope, what it may say about the underlying dynamics of our culture in regard to existential/metaphysical concerns or the ways we struggle with certainty/uncertainty. How are these ideas examined in both popular and philosophical contexts? Full episode notes at this link: Support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon at this link: | |||
| Moral Subjectivity | 15 Apr 2022 | 01:05:38 | |
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 Genealogy of Morals as our guide to uncover the conditions of moral subjectivity. Full episode notes available here: Support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon at this link: | |||
| Desire | 08 Apr 2022 | 01:04:12 | |
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 affects and, perhaps, the root of the war of all against all. More recently, desire has become a focus in feminist philosophy, Foucauldian “geneaology,” philosophies of race, and queer theory, just to name a few central directions. In this episode, the HBS hosts talk about desire. Full episode notes at this link: Please support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon here: | |||
| Memory | 01 Apr 2022 | 01:03:53 | |
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 discuss memory and its relation to personal identity and social identity. This means that we also confront forgetting. Full episode notes at this link: Support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast on Patreon here: | |||
| The Simulation Hypothesis | 25 Mar 2022 | 01:02:44 | |
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: Support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast at Patreon here: | |||
| Style | 18 Mar 2022 | 01:02:46 | |
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: Support HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast at Patreon. As we often say, we do this for free but it does have costs! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Bars | 10 Mar 2022 | 01:06:12 | |
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 happens?” What does that say about the bar.
Please consider supporting our costs at Patreon. As we often say, we do this for free but it does have costs. It would help us out tremendously if you could help us with those costs. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Reality TV | 14 Jun 2024 | 00:50:53 | |
The HBS hosts are not here to make friends. They’re here to WIN. We all have our low-brow guilty pleasures and, for millions of Americans, one of those is reality TV. Only a few months ago, amidst a war raging in the Ukraine, a new regent being crowned in the U.K., and reproductive rights being stripped from women here in the U.S., the whole of the internet was talking about only one thing: “Scandoval.” “Scandoval” (a portmanteau cleverly combining the name of its chief ne’er-do-well perpetrator, Tom Sandoval, and the “scandal” his infidelity initiated) mostly involved a garden-variety boyfriend/girlfriend breakup between two of the main characters on the Bravo series Vanderpump Rules, a reality television show about garden-variety Los Angeles bartenders and waitstaff and their garden-variety attempts to be more than just garden-variety bartenders and waitstaff. … which leads one to wonder: how in the world did this become the single most trending topic on social media for more than 3 months? Today, we’re going to get our noses out of the clouds and take seriously what is probably one of the most influential pop culture products of the 21st century. Is “reality television” really “real”? Are the lives we see on the screen distillations of authentic human experience, or carefully crafted narratives that invite us to indulge in voyeuristic schadenfreude? Might there be something deeper and more meaningful to be found in these simulations of “reality”? Full episode notes available at this link: ------------------- Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Turning Up the Heat | 11 Feb 2022 | 01:05:50 | |
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 talk. Maybe it is a bit self-indulgent, but it surely will provide more insight into the lives and perspectives of the hosts! Full episode notes at this link: | |||
| The Godfather Trilogy | 04 Feb 2022 | 01:10:41 | |
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: http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-44-the-godfather-trilogy/ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Superstition | 28 Jan 2022 | 01:04:36 | |
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 harmless superstitions? Full episode notes at this link: SUPPORT Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Patreon here: | |||
| Optimism and Pessimism | 21 Jan 2022 | 00:56:20 | |
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 of optimism/ pessimism. There is clearly a political sense–can we work together to amass power to make the world, society, or a particular country better? Or is it all futile? There might also be a philosophical sense–can philosophy make individual or collective lives better or is it impotent? Full episode notes at this link: SUPPORT Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Patreon here: | |||
| Tourism | 14 Jan 2022 | 00:58:16 | |
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 person a tourist. What other types of tourism are there? What are the other implications of being a tourist? What are the economic, political and even ethical ramifications of walking through the history and culture of others.
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| Resolve | 07 Jan 2022 | 00:55:25 | |
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: www.hotelbarpodcast.com | |||
| Work | 31 Dec 2021 | 01:02:41 | |
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 “love” their work? How much of our work demands “emotional labor”? Why is it necessary for (some) workers to abdicate their real or “authentic” voice in order to survive? How have we become so accustomed to accepting less and less, even as more and more is demanded of us? Are workers in the 21st C. just a pot of boiling frogs? Full episode notes at this link: | |||
| Social Media | 24 Dec 2021 | 01:01:24 | |
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 what is downright ugly? We talk about who is helped by social media and who is hurt by it. We talk about its effects on our society. And we talk about why we use or don't use social media. Full episode notes available at this link: | |||
| Transcendence | 17 Dec 2021 | 00:57:30 | |
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 of transcendence. Can we have a good transcendence without the bad? Full episode notes available at this link. | |||
| The Global South | 10 Dec 2021 | 00:48:36 | |
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 South” about these issues and what theorists in the global south challenge the “north” to encounter in its theorizing. Full episode notes available at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Friendship | 07 Jun 2024 | 00:58:36 | |
The HBS hosts discuss how friendships are forged, maintained, and sometimes broken. In The Politics of Friendship, Jacques Derrida invokes a statement originally attributed to Aristotle: “My Friends, there are no friends," capturing something that seems to be fundamental about friendship. Friendship is essential to human thriving, but also difficult, if not impossible, to attain and maintain. We make all sorts of fine distinctions between friends, "best" friends, acquaintances, colleagues or "work" friends, etc. But what makes someone that you know a "friend" vs. an acquaintance or a colleague? Is that a permanent condition? What do we owe to a friend, and what do they ow us? Is there a political dimension to friendship? This week, friends of the podcast, we're talking about friendship: how it's forged, how it is nurtured and sustained, and how it is broken. Full episode notes at this link: ------------------- Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Legally Right, Morally Wrong | 03 Dec 2021 | 01:00:06 | |
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 at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Cancel Panic | 26 Nov 2021 | 01:02:40 | |
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 constitute a “culture,” we think). Is cancel culture itself evidence of a moral panic, or is there a cancel panic being manufactured by the canceled? In 2014, the #MeToo movement gave a name to the (long-practiced) practice of “calling-out” on social media. By 2015, “calling-out” had already evolved to “canceling.” Who are the cancelers? Who are the canceled? And how many different kinds of “mobs” are there on Twitter, anyway? Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Thought Experiments | 19 Nov 2021 | 01:04:21 | |
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 which philosophers can distill the essential elements of a theory. We talk about the pros and cons of thought experiments, their uses, and their abuses. We give some examples of famous thought experiments and, yes, we talk about the trolley problem. Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| American Christianity | 12 Nov 2021 | 00:58:31 | |
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 America. Is there an identifiable strain of Christianity that is unique to the U.S.? If so, what are its dominant characteristics? How closely does it adhere to-- or how far does it stray from-- the basic tenets of Christianity? In this episode, the HBS hosts take a hard look at some of the more curious features that seem to characterize Christianity in America-- the church-as-corporation model, the prominence of "prosperity gospel," the conflation of God and Country, and the widespread antagonism toward immigrants, LGBTQ persons, the poor, and others. Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Whose History? | 05 Nov 2021 | 01:06:13 | |
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 teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools, we invited Dr. Charles McKinney, Jr. (Neville Frierson Bryan Chair of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of History at Rhodes College) to sit for a few rounds at the hotel bar as we explore the dynamics of power, liberation, and Truth as they play out in the teaching of history. Full episode notes available at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Robots | 08 Oct 2021 | 01:11:23 | |
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 Gunkel (author of Robot Rights and How To Survive A Robot Invasion) about his work on emergent technologies, intelligent machines, and robots. Following the recent announcement by Elson Musk that Tesla is developing a humanoid robot for home use, we ask: what is the real difference between a robot and a toaster? Do robots and intelligent machines rise to the level of “persons”? Should we accord them moral consideration or legal rights? Or are those questions just the consequence of our over-anthropomorphizing robots and intelligent machines? Full episode notes available at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Defending the Humanities | 01 Oct 2021 | 01:09:27 | |
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 study are often "pitched" to students on the basis of their future income-earning potential. However, college students now are entering a workforce where more than 30% of available jobs will be automated before those students reach middle age. Today's college students need more than vocational training to prepare them for the future they are entering. Most academics can (and do) make the argument for the intrinsic value of the humanities-- that it helps shape us into good citizens and moral agents-- but are there other defenses available? Does a humanities-based education also have instrumental value? How do you get a job with a History or Philosophy or Anthropology degree? Is humanities-based education for everyone, or is it elitist? Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Generations | 24 Sep 2021 | 01:04:34 | |
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 either but in this episode Dr. Rick Lee leads a discussion to try to figure out whether these generational designations have any stable meaning. Do they make sense as organizational categories. Are they Objective Types, Natural Kind, or Gerrymandered Sets? Do generational markers say more than gender, racial, class, ability in terms of identity? We ask about the dates of generations, the characteristics of generations and generational self-consciousness. | |||
| The Hustle | 17 Sep 2021 | 00:54:36 | |
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 will respect the hustle." In this episode, Dr. Leigh M. Johnson takes the lead in an analysis of how "the hustle," in all senses of that term, define our lives today. We look at the HBO docuseries Generation Hustle-- which tracks the stories of 10 young scammers, con-artists, and/or sociopaths-- before trying to pinpoint the economic and social conditions that make these kinds of hustles so appealing to GenY and GenZ. Then, we turn to the "side-hustle" (gig work), an increasingly necessary hustle in the lives of workers across generations. Finally, we ask: why are we working so hard and in such a hurry all the time? Full episode notes available at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Music | 10 Sep 2021 | 01:01:29 | |
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 co-host's own musical likes and dislikes, the HBS gang jumps right into a consideration of the effect that music has on us both as individuals and collectively. Does music give us some singular insight into what it means to be human? What does music evoke within us? How does it seem to have the power to inspire, to sadden, to terrify, and to comfort? How can it be used to manipulate? Is music a key to understanding the order of the Universe? Is it a universal language? And, if music is a common "human" denominator, how do we explain people who have no rhythm, who are "tone-deaf," or why our musical tastes vary so widely? Full episode notes available at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Personhood | 31 May 2024 | 00:54:44 | |
What is a person? What is a thing? And what difference does that difference make? Although we tend to use the terms "person" and "human being" interchangeably, it hasn't always been the case that all human beings were considered (moral or legal) persons, nor is the case today that all persons are human beings. Here in the United States, corporations are considered legal persons, and in several countries across the world, natural beings (like rivers, lakes, and ecosystems) have also been granted "personhood" status. Many people treat their pets as moral persons. Even when we don't call out cats and dogs "persons," we certainly distinguish them from other things (like a toaster!). Social robots and generative AI have only amplified our confusion about "personhood" recently. Do we need more categories to adequately distinguish our moral and legal obligations to the beings with which we share our world? Full episode notes available at this link: Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel! ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Guns | 03 Sep 2021 | 01:02:30 | |
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 health epidemic plaguing the United States, namely, gun violence. Nearly 10,000 people had already been killed by gun violence by June of 2021, with no sign of slowing numbers. Schoolchildren regularly practice "active shooter" drills and, in states like Tennessee, gun-control laws have been relaxed so much that they are practically non-existent. A study published earlier this year shows that gun suicides are rising steeply in 2021, including among teenagers and children. Between January 1 and August 31 of 2021, there were 242 days. A mass shooting occurred in the United States on all but 44 of those days. How did we get here and who have we become? Who is suffering the most from gun violence in our country, and who is most guilty for gun deaths? Is the Second Amendment's guarantee that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" been interpreted too loosely? Should the Second Amendment be repealed? In this episode, we take a close look at all of those questions, as well as Dr. Carol Anderson's new book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. Full episode notes available at this link: ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Specialization | 27 Aug 2021 | 00:59:30 | |
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 diversify their curricula to include more women, BIPOC, queer, disabled, and other under-represented thinkers and texts. Yet, the “add diversity and stir” model for syllabus design in many ways fails to address a lot of the problems that motivated this demand in the first place. It isn’t just syllabi in the humanities that have a diversity problem, it’s the humanities professoriate itself. First, academics from traditionally dominant demographic groups– white, male, straight, non-disabled, and middle-to-upper class– ought not presume that their academic training has necessarily equipped them with the knowledge, skills, or understanding to simply “take up” an unfamiliar field of specialization with the same level of knowledge, skill, and understanding as a specialist in that area possesses. Second, pressuring the current professoriate to “add diversity and stir” tends to de-emphasize the need for universities and individual departments to hire faculty from traditionally under-represented demographics with specialized training in the needed areas. BUT… third, we must be careful not to assume that every person’s scholarly specialization mirrors their personal identity. How can we think about strategies for diversifying both the curricula and the faculty in humanities fields without reproducing the same prejudices that have made the humanities so non-diverse? Full episode notes available at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||
| Superheroes | 20 Aug 2021 | 01:03:05 | |
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 stories published by DC Comics and Marvel are a multi-million dollar per year industry and, in 2019 alone, superhero movies grossed 3.19 billion dollars in revenue. Although it may seem to the novice as if these publishing houses and film studios just recycle the same stories (and sequels) over and over, connoisseurs of the genre know that the figure of the "superhero" has changed and evolved dramatically over the last half-century. What does the figure of the superhero represent? Who does it serve? How has it adapted to reflect broader cultural, political, and social changes? In this episode, Dr. Charles F. Peterson-- a bona fide connoisseur of comics and superhero films-- schools his novice co-hosts on the nuances of superheroes and their development, as well as the deep and often profound philosophical truths that they help to reveal about us ordinary (not super and not heroic) humans. Check out the full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ | |||