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Showing episodes and shows of
Talia Mae Bettcher
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Hotel Bar Sessions
Interpretation
The central debate this week? Whether interpretation goes “all the way down.” Leigh stakes out a position, arguing that even the simplest acts of clarification are interpretive performances grounded in systems of meaning. Talia, donning her analytic hat, pushes back hard—insisting that certain discursive acts, like clarifications and first-person avowals of emotional states, are distinct from interpretation and must retain ethical authority, especially in politically fraught times. Rick mediates, drawing on hermeneutics and pragmatism to suggest that truth itself is an emergent product of interpretation, not a pre-existing ideal.What results is one of the most spirit...
2025-06-20
1h 12
Hotel Bar Sessions
Panic Now? (with Ira Allen)
Is it time to panic? In this episode, we invite rhetorician Ira Allen to the bar to explore the possibility that, yes, it might be—and that panic isn’t just an irrational breakdown but a vital, even necessary, affective response to the ongoing collapse we’re all living through. Allen’s recent book Panic! Now: Tools for Humanizing in an Age of Staggered Collapse challenges the neoliberal injunction to “stay calm” and instead asks what might be made possible if we allowed ourselves to feel—and live with—our panic.Together with co-hosts Leigh Johnson, Talia Bettcher, and Ri...
2025-06-13
1h 04
Hotel Bar Sessions
Private Parts
How can we talk, or think, about "private parts" in a philosophical way?In this provocative and unexpectedly tender episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, co-hosts Leigh M. Johnson, Rick Lee, and Talia Mae Bettcher unpack the philosophical complexities of “private parts.” What starts as a playful premise quickly becomes a deep exploration of bodily privacy, modesty, and the moral and social codes that govern our most intimate physical boundaries. Drawing from cultural history, personal anecdotes, and ethical theory, the hosts ask why some body parts are marked as “private,” what makes them morally charged, and why euphemisms often st...
2025-06-06
57 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
The Future of the University
Can the University be saved? Should it be saved? In this sobering and timely episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, co-hosts Leigh M. Johnson, Rick Lee, and Talia Mae Bettcher tackle the existential crisis facing higher education in the U.S. and beyond. Nothing is off limits in this conversation! From the increasing defunding of universities to their alignment with neoliberal capitalism, we're looking at the deeper values and societal roles that universities are meant to serve—and how far many institutions have strayed from that mission. The metastasis of administrative bloat. The erosion of shared gover...
2025-05-30
1h 16
Hotel Bar Sessions
Cringe
In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, your favorite philosophical trio—Leigh Johnson, Rick Lee, and Talia Bettcher—dive headfirst into the squirmy, complicated world of cringe. From wedding speeches gone wrong to tone-deaf icebreaker confessions, they unpack the peculiar affective cocktail we experience when someone's self-presentation dramatically misfires. Cringe isn’t just about secondhand embarrassment—it's a visceral, full-body response that blends aesthetic, moral, and even ontological dissonance.Leigh kicks off the discussion by proposing that cringe moments represent aesthetic failures that are rarely just personal—they feel universal. Drawing on Kant, Foucault, Butler, and even Kierkegaar...
2025-05-23
1h 05
Hotel Bar Sessions
What is Philosophy?
In this season-opening episode of Hotel Bar Sessions, Rick Lee and Leigh Johnson welcome new co-host Talia Mae Bettcher, a leading voice in trans philosophy and feminist theory, to dive into the deceptively simple but persistently perplexing question: What is philosophy?This wide-ranging conversation explores whether philosophy is defined by its methods (argument, critique, concept creation), its outcomes (or lack thereof), or the scenes and communities in which it takes place. Along the way, the hosts discuss credentialism in academia, gatekeeping in the discipline, and how philosophy might survive outside the university.Drawing...
2025-05-09
59 min
The Chatterbox
Judith Butler and Talia Mae Bettcher talk philosophy, personhood, resistance
Podcast: University of Minnesota PressEpisode: Judith Butler and Talia Mae Bettcher talk philosophy, personhood, resistancePub date: 2025-04-23Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationTalia Mae Bettcher’s Beyond Personhood provides an entirely new philosophical approach to trans experience, trans oppression, gender dysphoria, and the relationship between gender and identity. Arguing that the tense relation between trans oppression and resistance is mediated through the complex social phenomenon of gender make-believe, Bettcher introduces the groundbreaking theory of interpersonal spatiality, which requires rejection of the phil...
2025-05-08
46 min
Queer Lit
“Beyond Personhood” with Talia Mae Bettcher
Meet Talia Bettcher, the amazing philosopher who gave us canonical essays like “Trapped in the Wrong Theory” and “Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers,” and has now published a paradigm-shifting book about trans philosophy. Talia tells me about why personhood may be overrated, why the existential WTF lead her to this realisation, and how it’s really all about relationships. We also discuss three of Talia’s highly influential concepts: reality enforcement, the wrong body account, and the beyond the binary model.CW: transphobia, violence, abuse, sexual abuse, sexual abuse while unconscious (from 28 mins)R...
2025-05-06
46 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
REPLAY: Trans Philosophy (with Talia Mae Bettcher)
The HBS co-hosts learn why it's not just about pronouns.[This episode originally aired in November 2023.]In recent years, society has witnessed a seismic significant shift in our understanding of gender. For some, the binary notion of gender, once seen as immutable and fixed, has given way to a more inclusive and fluid understanding of identity… a transformation that has brought to the forefront the lived experiences of transgender individuals, who have long grappled with issues of self-identity, societal acceptance, and the philosophical underpinnings of gender itself.For others, the emergence of tr...
2025-04-25
58 min
University of Minnesota Press
Judith Butler and Talia Mae Bettcher talk philosophy, personhood, resistance
Talia Mae Bettcher’s Beyond Personhood provides an entirely new philosophical approach to trans experience, trans oppression, gender dysphoria, and the relationship between gender and identity. Arguing that the tense relation between trans oppression and resistance is mediated through the complex social phenomenon of gender make-believe, Bettcher introduces the groundbreaking theory of interpersonal spatiality, which requires rejection of the philosophical concepts of person, self, and subject. Here, Bettcher is joined in conversation with Judith Butler.Talia Mae Bettcher is professor of philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles, and author of Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Ph...
2025-04-23
46 min
New Books in Intellectual History
Talia Mae Bettcher, "Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
What does transphobic oppression have to do with sexism, heterosexism, and racism? How does a decolonial analysis help us understand trans oppression? How are the relatively recent concepts of person, self, and subject implicated in these forms of oppression? And what theorizations are already available within trans communities for thinking through this all? In Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2025), Talia Mae Bettcher develops a new theory of intimacy and distance to show how structures of appearing—as well as liminal experiences of appearance—can help us understand trans oppression and gender...
2025-04-20
52 min
New Books in Critical Theory
Talia Mae Bettcher, "Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
What does transphobic oppression have to do with sexism, heterosexism, and racism? How does a decolonial analysis help us understand trans oppression? How are the relatively recent concepts of person, self, and subject implicated in these forms of oppression? And what theorizations are already available within trans communities for thinking through this all? In Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2025), Talia Mae Bettcher develops a new theory of intimacy and distance to show how structures of appearing—as well as liminal experiences of appearance—can help us understand trans oppression and gender...
2025-04-20
52 min
New Books in Gender
Talia Mae Bettcher, "Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
What does transphobic oppression have to do with sexism, heterosexism, and racism? How does a decolonial analysis help us understand trans oppression? How are the relatively recent concepts of person, self, and subject implicated in these forms of oppression? And what theorizations are already available within trans communities for thinking through this all? In Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2025), Talia Mae Bettcher develops a new theory of intimacy and distance to show how structures of appearing—as well as liminal experiences of appearance—can help us understand trans oppression and gender...
2025-04-20
52 min
New Books in LGBTQ+ Studies
Talia Mae Bettcher, "Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
What does transphobic oppression have to do with sexism, heterosexism, and racism? How does a decolonial analysis help us understand trans oppression? How are the relatively recent concepts of person, self, and subject implicated in these forms of oppression? And what theorizations are already available within trans communities for thinking through this all? In Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2025), Talia Mae Bettcher develops a new theory of intimacy and distance to show how structures of appearing—as well as liminal experiences of appearance—can help us understand trans oppression and gender...
2025-04-20
52 min
New Books in Philosophy
Talia Mae Bettcher, "Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
What does transphobic oppression have to do with sexism, heterosexism, and racism? How does a decolonial analysis help us understand trans oppression? How are the relatively recent concepts of person, self, and subject implicated in these forms of oppression? And what theorizations are already available within trans communities for thinking through this all? In Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2025), Talia Mae Bettcher develops a new theory of intimacy and distance to show how structures of appearing—as well as liminal experiences of appearance—can help us understand trans oppression and gender...
2025-04-20
52 min
New Books in Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
Talia Mae Bettcher, "Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
What does transphobic oppression have to do with sexism, heterosexism, and racism? How does a decolonial analysis help us understand trans oppression? How are the relatively recent concepts of person, self, and subject implicated in these forms of oppression? And what theorizations are already available within trans communities for thinking through this all? In Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2025), Talia Mae Bettcher develops a new theory of intimacy and distance to show how structures of appearing—as well as liminal experiences of appearance—can help us understand trans oppression and gender...
2025-04-20
52 min
This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine
Beyond Identity: Bettcher’s Transgender Philosophy
Transgender philosophy professor Talia Mae Bettcher (“Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy”) confronts a world that oppression has turned upside down, and has some bold suggestions for radical, liberating action to stop trans erasure (interviewed by Tanya Kane-Parry). And in NewsWrap: the U.S. Department of the Navy puts its plans to expel Navy and Marine Corps personnel with a history of gender dysphoria into high gear, transgender Representative Zooey Zephyr eloquently convinces the Montana state House that drag performances are not inherently sexual, a licensed Colorado counselor’s free speech complaint against the state ban on conversion therapy goes t...
2025-03-18
28 min
This Way Out: The International LGBTQ Radio Magazine
Beyond Identity: Bettcher’s Transgender Philosophy
Transgender philosophy professor Talia Mae Bettcher (“Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy”) confronts a world that oppression has turned upside down, and has some bold suggestions for radical, liberating action to stop trans erasure (interviewed by Tanya Kane-Parry). And in NewsWrap: the U.S. Department of the Navy puts its plans to expel Navy and Marine Corps personnel with a history of gender dysphoria into high gear, transgender Representative Zooey Zephyr eloquently convinces the Montana state House that drag performances are not inherently sexual, a licensed Colorado counselor’s free speech complaint against the state ban on conversion therapy goes t...
2025-03-18
28 min
Gender Reveal
Talia Mae Bettcher
Ozzy and Tuck chat with philosopher Talia Mae Bettcher (she/her). Topics include: Creating a theory of trans oppression beyond the “wrong body” and “beyond the binary” accounts How clothing can be part of an abusive system of forced disclosure “Let’s meditate on genitalia if we can for a moment” Why are there so many terfs in philosophy?? Plus: Phoria, apparitionals, moral sex, and other fun new vocab This Week in Gender: Updates on Trans Day of Having a Nice Snack community events! Apply for funding at bit.ly/tdos2025 or donate at @Tuck-Woodstock & PayPal.me/TWoodstock.
2025-03-17
47 min
Overthink
Trans Identity with Talia Mae Bettcher
How should we make sense of the Trump administration’s assault on Trans rights? In episode 125 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk to philosopher Talia Mae Bettcher about her new book Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy, where she discusses everything from “genderphoria” to her notion of “reality enforcement” (a mechanism of transphobic oppression). In the interview, Dr. Bettcher expresses concerns about certain received views about trans identity, such as the “the wrong body” and “beyond the binary” views, which don’t capture the complexity of trans experiences. How can we move toward a more inclusive culture when it comes to trans id...
2025-03-11
53 min
The Intellectual
On Trans Philosophy and troubling a Western-dominant sense of trans.
Podcast: University of Minnesota PressEpisode: On Trans Philosophy and troubling a Western-dominant sense of trans.Pub date: 2024-09-26Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationAcross language and politics, feminism and phenomenology, and decolonial theory, Trans Philosophy addresses trans worldmaking in all its beauty and mundanity. The volume’s four editors, Perry Zurn, Andrea J. Pitts, Talia Mae Bettcher, and PJ DiPietro focus on the contributions of trans and gender-nonconforming philosophers from around the globe. Showcasing writing from a range of emerging and established voic...
2024-10-04
1h 03
University of Minnesota Press
On Trans Philosophy and troubling a Western-dominant sense of trans.
Across language and politics, feminism and phenomenology, and decolonial theory, Trans Philosophy addresses trans worldmaking in all its beauty and mundanity. The volume’s four editors, Perry Zurn, Andrea J. Pitts, Talia Mae Bettcher, and PJ DiPietro focus on the contributions of trans and gender-nonconforming philosophers from around the globe. Showcasing writing from a range of emerging and established voices, Trans Philosophy addresses discrimination, embodiment, identity, language, and law, utilizing diverse philosophical methods to attend to significant intersections between trans experience and class, disability, race, nationality, and sexuality. Here, the book’s four editors engage each other in conversation.
2024-09-26
1h 03
Hotel Bar Sessions
Trans Philosophy (with Talia Mae Bettcher)
The HBS co-hosts learn why it's not just about pronouns.In recent years, society has witnessed a seismic significant shift in our understanding of gender. For some, the binary notion of gender, once seen as immutable and fixed, has given way to a more inclusive and fluid understanding of identity… a transformation that has brought to the forefront the lived experiences of transgender individuals, who have long grappled with issues of self-identity, societal acceptance, and the philosophical underpinnings of gender itself.For others, the emergence of trans issues and trans people has motivated a pa...
2023-11-17
58 min
Discourse: The Grabbing Back podcast
Feminism and the Body: Biology meets Philosophy with Talia Mae Bettcher and Julia Serano
Welcome to Series 2 of Discourse: The Grabbing Back Podcast! We are so excited to be starting this season with such a fantastic episode with guests Julia Serano and Talia Mae Bettcher. We discuss, amongst many ideas, the perceptions and readings of our bodies, the cultural specificity of boundaries and how they tend to affect women more than men and how femininity is considered quote-unquote artificial in a similar way to transness, and how dangerous that can be. Trigger warnings: transphobia and sexual assault. Talia is an expert on feminist philosophy, transgender studies and...
2023-08-17
1h 03
值得表扬
05. 跨儿/酷儿/女权主义
值得表扬第五期邀请了我的好朋友Heng来跟我聊一聊跨性别研究,酷儿研究,女权主义,跨性别医疗,以及她的研究。 Heng(she/they)现在在多伦多大学读性别研究硕士,研究方向是trans studies, Sinophone queer studies, sex work and pornography. 时间线: 2:10 跨性别研究中各种话术的区别 3:52 作为伞状术语的跨儿(trans) 5:02 跨性(transsexual)与跨性别(transgender) 8:36 间性(intersex) 13:37 顺性别(cisgender)的出现 16:53 以上词汇在中文语境下的使用 20:13 本土语境中的CD/TS 22:32 国内性别过渡资源(详细信息可参考mtf.wiki和ftm.wiki) 24:24 国内性别过渡现状 25:35 以激素替代治疗为例对比加拿大和其他西方国家 26:15 中国跨性别医疗的进展与困境 27:47 性别肯定手术术后国内证件问题 31:44 作为“守门”的跨性别医疗 37:25 在加拿大偶遇TERF与民族主义者的结盟 39:45 酷儿研究和跨性别研究的关系 48:02 TERF与女权主义的关系 51:19 J.K. 罗琳 54:46 中文网络的TERF 55:54 跨性别者约会是否会、是否需要揭示跨性别身份? 1:02:04 只对跨性别者感到性吸引是“性癖”吗? 1:08:11 跨性别研究与交叉性 1:13:04 博士研究想做的方向:中国和北美语境下的亚裔跨性别性工作者 1:18:30 多伦多大学性别研究就读体验 播客中提及的书和影视(以出现顺序排列)(条目按照书名、作者、出版社的顺序) Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific. Howard Chiang. Columbia University Press, 2021. “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto.”Sandy Stone. “TERF wars: An Introduction,” in The Sociological Review, 2020. Pearce, Ruth, Sonja Erikainen, and Ben Vincent. “Judith Butler: ‘We need to rethink the category of woman,’” Jules Gleeson. Guardian. “Doing Justice to Someone: Sex Reassignment and Allegories of Transsexuality,” in Undoing Gender. Judith Butler. (在这篇文章中巴特勒讨论间性David Reimer的故事) “My New Vagina Won’t Make Me Happy: And it shouldn’t have to,” Andrea Long Chu. The New York Times. “After Trans Studies,” Andrea Long Chu and Emmett Harsin Drager. Transgender Studies Quarterly. “Nice Trannies,” Jack Halberstam. Transgender Studies Quarterly. (Halberstam回应Chu的文章) “Intersexuality, Transgender, and Transsexuality,” in Oxford Handbook of Femini...
2023-02-03
1h 28
Hotel Bar Sessions
The Rights of Nature (with Stewart Motha)
The HBS hosts discuss legal personhood and rights for rivers, lakes, and mountains with Dr. Stewart Motha.In most discussions about extending rights or legal personhood to non-humans, the focus tends to be on robots/machines or non-human animals. However, given our current global climate crisis, we have good reason to ask: isn't it time to devote more attention to the rights-- and perhaps legal and moral "personhood"-- of natural entities? What sorts of protections might be extended by the law if our notion of personhood were expanded? This is not an easily answered q...
2022-09-23
59 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Critics and Criticism (with A.O. Scott)
The HBS hosts chat with A.O. Scott about the role and responsibilities of the critic.The critic is frequently seen as a parasite who lives of the creative life of others but not producing a work of art through their criticism. In this episode, we are honored to be joined by A.O. Scott to discuss the role of the critic, the creativity of criticism, and the mutual dependence of art and criticism.A.O. Scott is chief film critic (along with Manohla Dargis) for The New York Times. He also write for The...
2022-09-16
55 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Democracy in Peril (with Linda Alcoff)
The HBS hosts ask Dr. Linda Alcoff just how close to the edge of the bed is the United States sleeping?A year and a half ago, as an angry, armed mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building in what was, thankfully, an unsuccessful insurrection attempt, many of us watching the event unfold on television asked ourselves: is democracy itself in peril? This is, of course, a question we should have been asking for many years prior to Jan 6, 2021. And it is a question we should still be asking. At the federal level, an activist and regressive...
2022-09-09
57 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Fear
The HBS hosts wonder whether the call is coming from inside the house.Fear is a one of the most complex of human affects. It is both physical and psychological. It can be intensely private or shared by entire communities. It is sometimes paralyzing and other times exciting. Fear often seizes us without warning, but we can also "think ourselves into" being afraid. What, if anything, distinguishes fear from dread or anxiety? How are fears managed or overcome? Why do so many people share similar phobias? Is there a logic to fear?This w...
2022-09-02
55 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
YouTube's Alt-Right Rabbit Hole (with Caleb Cain)
The HBS hosts chat with Caleb Cain about his experience being radicalized by the Alt-Right internet.In June 2019, the New York Times featured a story about Caleb Cain, entitled "The Making of a YouTube Radical.” That piece was meant to highlight the subtle, severe, and devastating IRL effects of YouTube’s recommendation algorithm, which has been proven many times over to promote what (in internet slang) is called “red-pilling”—that is, the conversion of users to far-right beliefs. Today, we’re talking to Caleb Cain, a person who has been down the alt-right rabbit hole and somehow found his wa...
2022-08-26
1h 00
Hotel Bar Sessions
Rethinking Disability (with Joel Michael Reynolds)
The HBS hosts talk with Dr. Joel Michael Reynolds about what bodies are afforded and denied. As we come to recognize more and more the occlusions that occur in, and often constitute, philosophy and its history, attention to an ableist presupposition in philosophy has come to the fore. Much as with feminist theory or queer theory or race theory, disability theory not only works to expose the ableist presuppositions of philosophy but also to alter philosophy for the better by the inclusion of the formerly excluded. Why are affordances-- social, political, moral, and physical-- made for some t...
2022-08-19
53 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Sex Robots (with Kate Devlin)
The HBS hosts sit down with Dr. Kate Devlin to talk about social relationships between humans and machines.When most people think about our future with robots, they tend to ask the following three questions: (1) Will robots take my job?. (2) Will they kill us?, and (3) Can I have sex with them?This week, the HBS hosts are joined by Dr. Kate Devlin, Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London and the author of Turned On: Science, Sex, and Robots (Bloomsbury, 2018). We talk to Dr. De...
2022-08-12
1h 05
Hotel Bar Sessions
The Blues (with Charles L. Hughes)
The HBS hosts ask Dr. Charles Hughes for water, and he gives them gasoline. According to co-host Charles Peterson, the blues is "as American as apple pie and as Black as the Funky Chicken." The blues is a genre of music, to be sure, but it's also an emotion, perhaps even an existential bearing. What makes blues music distinctive? What does it mean to have "the blues"? Can everyone have or play the blues? Should everyone?In this episode, the HBS co-hosts discuss these questions (and more!) with Dr. Charles L. Hughes, Director of the Th...
2022-08-05
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
Memes (with Andrew Baron)
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 wh...
2022-07-29
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
Reason
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...
2022-07-22
55 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Plagiarism
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...
2022-07-15
1h 04
Hotel Bar Sessions
The Public Intellectual (with Eddie Glaude, Jr.)
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...
2022-07-08
1h 03
Hotel Bar Sessions
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
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 b...
2022-06-17
57 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Queers (with Ladelle McWhorter)
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...
2022-06-10
56 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Utopia
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----------------SUPPORT Hotel Bar Ses...
2022-06-03
57 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Philosophers on the Internet
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 “shou...
2022-05-27
56 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Musical Theater
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...
2022-05-20
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
National Identity
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 lin...
2022-05-13
1h 01
Hotel Bar Sessions
Algorithms
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://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-54-algorithms/Support Hotel Bar Sessions on Patreon here:patreon.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2022-05-06
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
Metaphysics
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:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-53-metaphysicsSupport...
2022-04-29
55 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Immortality
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...
2022-04-22
53 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Moral Subjectivity
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:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-51-moral-subjectivitySupport H...
2022-04-15
1h 05
Hotel Bar Sessions
Desire
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, Foucauldi...
2022-04-08
1h 04
Hotel Bar Sessions
Memory
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: http://hotelbarpodcast...
2022-04-01
1h 03
Hotel Bar Sessions
The Simulation Hypothesis
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-hypothesisSupport HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast at Patreon here:patron.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2022-03-25
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
Style
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://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-47-styleSupport HOTEL BAR SESSIONS podcast at Patreon. As we often say, we do this for free but it does have costs! ★ Support thi...
2022-03-18
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
Bars
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.Full episode notes at this link:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-46-barsPlease c...
2022-03-10
1h 06
Hotel Bar Sessions
Turning Up the Heat
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...
2022-02-11
1h 05
Hotel Bar Sessions
The Godfather Trilogy
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 ★
2022-02-04
1h 10
Hotel Bar Sessions
Superstition
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:http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-43-superstition/SUPPORT Hotel Bar Sessions podcast on Patreon here:patreon.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2022-01-28
1h 04
Hotel Bar Sessions
Optimism and Pessimism
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 b...
2022-01-21
56 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Tourism
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...
2022-01-14
58 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Resolve
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.comSUPPORT US HERE: patreon.com/hotelbarsessions ★ Support this podcast on Patr...
2022-01-07
55 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Work
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...
2021-12-31
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
Social Media
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...
2021-12-24
1h 01
Hotel Bar Sessions
Transcendence
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. http://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-37-transcendence ★ Support thi...
2021-12-17
57 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
The Global South
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. ★ Su...
2021-12-10
48 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Legally Right, Morally Wrong
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 ★
2021-12-03
1h 00
Hotel Bar Sessions
Cancel Panic
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-p...
2021-11-26
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
Thought Experiments
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 ★
2021-11-19
1h 04
Hotel Bar Sessions
American Christianity
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 Ame...
2021-11-12
58 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Whose History?
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...
2021-11-05
1h 06
Overthink
Living Your Truth (feat. Tamsin Kimoto)
Are you #LivingYourTruth? This buzzy catchphrase is all over Instagram, but might it actually justify selfish or irresponsible behavior? Alternatively, can it be a way of affirming marginalized identities--and perhaps even reveal the extent to which our lives are ultimately of our own making? Ellie and David speak with Dr. Tamsin Kimoto in episode 37 about how "living your truth" relates to transgender identity formation, "born this way" narratives of sexuality, and the idea of an authentic self. After the interview, David and Ellie suggest that existential authenticity is a way of "living your truth" without buying into the metaphysical...
2021-10-26
59 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Robots
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 acco...
2021-10-08
1h 11
Hotel Bar Sessions
Defending the Humanities
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 v...
2021-10-01
1h 09
Hotel Bar Sessions
Generations
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 gen...
2021-09-24
1h 04
Hotel Bar Sessions
The Hustle
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...
2021-09-17
54 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Music
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...
2021-09-10
1h 01
Hotel Bar Sessions
Guns
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...
2021-09-03
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
Specialization
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, a...
2021-08-27
59 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Superheroes
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 t...
2021-08-20
1h 03
Hotel Bar Sessions
White Working Class
The HBS hosts take a critical look at the white working class and their grievances.Leading up to the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, and even more so afterwards, the U.S. found itself inundated with analyses of the allegedly “overlooked” grievances of the white working class. Were those legitimate grievances that should have been affirmed and addressed? Who belongs to the WWC in America, anyway? Do they share a “class consciousness” in the traditional Marxian sense, or are they primarily identifiable by their shared Whiteness? Are there multiple iterations of the “white working class” ? And, if so, are the...
2021-08-13
58 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Conspiracy Theories
The HBS hosts discuss conspiracy theories and what motivates people to believe in them. The word "conspiracy" derives from the Latin con- ("with" or "together") and spirare ("to breathe"), and it seems like more and more people are breathing in the thin air of dubious explanations and bonding together over them. From Q-Anon to flat earthers to anti-vaxxers to climate change deniers to people convinced that a pedophilic, blood-drinking, sex-trafficking, deep state cabal is orchestrating our lives, conspiracy theories have captured the hearts and minds of many in the 21st C. United States. Is this new? Should we...
2021-08-06
59 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Vulgarity
The HBS hosts lower themselves into the muck in this NSFW episode.Dr. Charles F. Peterson is in the hot seat for this episode’s discussion of vulgarity. What is the difference between obscenity, profanity, and vulgarity? Who determines what is “appropriate”? Is the very concept of vulgarity elitist?Full episode notes available at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2021-07-30
55 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Laughter
In advance of Rick Lee’s forthcoming book on laughter, co-hosts Charles and Leigh ask him why he thinks all “theories” of comedy are inadequate. What exactly is the “joke” part of a joke? Is comedy fundamentally formulaic or does it escape systematic analysis? What is happening when we laugh together– as the HBS co-hosts do a lot in this episode!– and how does laughter connect us to other people?John Chrysostom once warned that “laughter often gives birth to foul discourse” and the HBS hosts are determined to prove him right in this episode. Definitely pour yourself a drink b...
2021-07-23
58 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Digital Afterlives
Co-host Leigh M. Johnson is in the hot seat for this episode's discussion of digital afterlives. If we consider the "digital," information-based self to be distinguishable from the meatspace self, we should ask: how long can the Digital Me live on after my meatspace body dies? Technology already enables us to "re-animate" archives of personal information in many ways, and some futurists believe that we may, someday, be able to upload our consciousnesses to the cloud. Who owns that information? What are they currently allowed (or not allowed) to do with it? What would happen if we insisted that...
2021-07-16
1h 03
Hotel Bar Sessions
Citizenship
This episode explores the political and ethical dimensions of the category of “citizen”. In anticipation of his soon-to-be-released book Beyond Civil Disobedience: Social Nullification and Black Citizenship (August, 2021), Charles sits down in the captain's "hot" seat for this episode's discussion of the limits of citizenship, the failure of the state, and the construction of new categories of political, social and civic identity. Millions of people have taken to the streets in protest over the last decade. What are the questions those citizens are asking about the failures of their government? What do these protests say about how we think abou...
2021-07-09
57 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Private Cities
The HBS hosts discuss how cities, once considered hubs of public life and interaction, have become increasingly segregated, partitioned, disconnected, and privatized.Drawing on his experience using the city of a Chicago as a classroom, Rick Lee asks: can we identify the material markers of "privatization" in contemporary cities? How do we know which parts of the city are for "us," which parts of the city are for everyone, and which parts aren't? Is there anything like a "public commons" anymore and, if so, where is it? What can we learn from the fact that even park...
2021-07-02
55 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Hey, Biden!
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2021-06-04
57 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Shame
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2021-05-28
56 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
Teaching
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2021-05-21
1h 02
Hotel Bar Sessions
WhoDunnIt?
Is the world in itself a mystery that science and philosophy take different routes to try to solve? How do luck, logic, empirical investigation, and intuition all work together to make sense of the world? What would a solution even look like? Are philosophers basically just detectives? Is a crime requisite to initiate investigations in mysteries? Is the unknown connected to Aristotle’s idea that philosophy begins in wonder? Is the mystery genre mostly a battle of reason over unreason?Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2021-05-14
1h 03
Hotel Bar Sessions
Privacy
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2021-05-07
1h 00
Hotel Bar Sessions
Love
The HBS hosts talk about love. What is love? Is it a feeling? Is it a cosmic or metaphysical force? Is it a primary motivating drive to propagate the species or to create ideas? What happens when love goes wrong?Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2021-04-30
55 min
Hotel Bar Sessions
The Philosophical Canon
Full episode notes at this link. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
2021-04-23
57 min