Hotel Bar Sessions podcast

27/07/2024

Episode 146 is live and this week we're unpacking all of the problems with peer review.

The HBS hosts discuss the current peer review crisis.

19/07/2024

Check out our most recent episode, where we are joined by Will Roberts to chat about ideology and self-emancipation!

Ideology is said in many ways. Which one is emancipatory?

12/07/2024

Episode 144 is live and sublime!

The ocean and space and "Ode to Joy" are sublime, of course... but what about an excellent lentil soup? In a confusing twist of etymology, where one would expect "sub" to mean "below," in the word "sublime" it indicates something above or even beyond. We use it as a superlative, but a superlative of...

05/07/2024

Ever wonder what it's like to live off-grid? Check out Episode 143 to hear all about it from our special guest, Eric Mack!

What motivates people to live off-grid in the 21st C? And how hard is it to survive out there? This week, the HBS hosts are joined by Eric Mack, journalist and co-host of Our Uncertain Future podcast, who decided in 2020 to move his family "off-grid." Currently residing in a 100% water- and energy-i...

28/06/2024

Episode 142 dropped today and this week we're talking about ideology!

What, if anything, is the difference between having ideological commitments and belonging to a "cult"? This 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 C...

21/06/2024

Newest episode of Hotel Bar Sessions dropped today and this week we're talking about Generative AI!

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 a...

14/06/2024

What's "real" about reality tv?

Check out our newest episode to find out!

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

07/06/2024

Episode 139 is live and this week we're chatting about friendship!

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. Friendsh...

31/05/2024

Episode 138 is live and this week we're trying to parse the difference between persons and things.

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 hu...

31/05/2024

Episode 137 is live. We're talking about "originality" and we debut our newest co-host, David Gunkel!

The HBS hosts ask: what's so special about originality? Today, originality is being challenged in so many ways: comedians “stealing” jokes, cultural appropriation, remixes, not to mention the myriad ways that generative artificial intelligence has made plagiarism of all kinds possible. We value ...

31/05/2024

Season 10 kicks off with a return to the movies! This time, Michael Norton joins us to discuss the existentialist implications of "Joe versus the Volcano" (1990).

Michael Norton explains why “Joe Versus the Volcano” is the perfect existentialist film. Continuing our tradition of going to the movies for the first episode of teach new season, we watch the 1990 film Joe vs. The Volcano with Michael Norton from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. Michael...

10/05/2024

One last MINIBAR episode to tide you over before we kick off Season 10, which starts next week, May 17!

The HBS hosts cross-examine the courts. Former President Trump is currently dividing his time between the campaign trail and the courtroom. Some Americans are outraged by what they view to be targeted prosecutions by biased and overzealous District Attorneys, while others view the same events as a l...

03/05/2024

While we're on break between seasons, check out this MINIBAR episode where we introduce you to our newest co-host, Dr. David Gunkel!

Stay tuned for Season 10, which drops May 17!

For this "mini-bar" episode, HBS introduces our newest addition to the co-host gang, Dr. David Gunkel! David Gunkel is an award-winning author, educator and researcher, specializing in the philosophy of technology, with a focus on the moral and legal challenges of artificial intelligence and robots....

03/05/2024

Final episode of Season 9 on Jean-Paul Sartre's "bad faith."

Stay tuned for Season 10, which drops on May 17!

The HBS hosts discuss the many and varied ways we lie to ourselves.

03/05/2024

Episode 134 with our furry friends!

The HBS hosts celebrate the paw-some impact of furry companions on our lives.

03/05/2024

Episode 133 with special guest, Benedetta Todaro!

The HBS hosts take a break from the bar and lie down on the couch.

03/05/2024

Catching up on some missed posts! Here's Episode 132!

The HBS hosts look for the cause of the Golden Spike.

22/03/2024

What, if any, are the limits of academic freedom?

The HBS hosts consider a case study testing the limits of academic freedom.

21/03/2024

Big announcement about the podcast coming in tomorrow's episode! Stay tuned...

21/03/2024

Episode 130 is live!

The HBS hosts discuss the style of "too late" capitalism with Anna Kornbluh.

08/03/2024

Episode 129 is live... and not boring!

The HBS hosts discuss the many paradoxes of ennui.

03/03/2024

Episode 128 is live and this week we're joined by Gavin Mueller, author of *Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Were Right About Why You Hate Your Job* Verso Books

The HBS hosts discuss how the Luddites were right about why we hate our jobs.

23/02/2024

Episode 127 is live and, to be honest, this is a great one!

The HBS hosts parse the difference between mistakes, half-truths, embellishments, and outright lies.

21/02/2024

Episode 126 is live!

The HBS hosts consider the sands though the hourglass.

21/02/2024

Check out Episode 125 where we talk to Biko Mandela Gray and Ryan J. Johnson about their Edinburgh University Press book "The Phenomenology of Black Spirit"!

The HBS discuss Hegel, the black radical tradition, and the history of Philosophy with Biko Mandela Gray and Ryan J. Johnson.

02/02/2024

Episode 124 is live and this week we're chatting about post-COVID "normality."

The HBS hosts chat about post-COVID demands to get back to normal.

27/01/2024

Check out Episode 123 on "Real Life Heroes" to hear our cohosts chat about how capes are overrated and why Hegel was right that no man is a hero to his valet!

The HBS reveal their IRL heroes and try to measure just how flawed a person can be while still deserving admiration.

19/01/2024

Episode 122 is live!

The HBS hosts dig into the details of one of the most villainized philosophies of the 20th Century.

12/01/2024

First episode of Season 9 just dropped! Check out our discussion of the 1960 film "The Magnificent Seven"!

The HBS hosts return to the movies to learn why men are cheaper than guns.