This week, we're pulling up a seat at the intersection of faith, governance, and democracy as we take on the Establishment Clause—that little First Amendment provision that’s supposed to keep church and state in their own lanes. But is that how it’s really playing out? Leigh, Rick, and Devonya dig into the history and contemporary implications of the separation of church and state, from school prayer to Supreme Court decisions, faith-based government offices, and religious encroachments on repro...
Mar 21, 2025•54 min•Season 12Ep. 176
Who's afraid of DEI? And why? Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) initiatives have become institutional mainstays in corporate and academic settings—but they are currently under attack. In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions , Leigh and Devonya sit down with Freedom Rider and retired Associate Professor of History at Boston College, Paul Breines , to reflect on the evolution of social justice movements from the civil rights struggles of the 1960s to today’s embattled DEIA progr...
Mar 14, 2025•56 min•Season 12Ep. 175
When does decorum keep us civil-- and when does it keep us silent? From courtroom etiquette to the Oval Office, from department meetings to NFL sidelines, decorum shapes our public interactions—but who gets to decide what counts as “proper” behavior? In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions , Rick, Leigh, and Devonya take on the contested role of decorum in social and political life. Is it a necessary lubricant for peaceful coexistence, or a tool for policing and silencing dissent? The hosts explor...
Mar 07, 2025•57 min•Season 12Ep. 174
Who gets to decide who we are? In this episode, Rick Lee and Devonya Havis pull up a chair with philosopher and political theorist Falguni Sheth to talk about the ways identity is shaped, claimed, and—more often than not—forced upon us. From census categories and legal definitions to personal choices and political struggles, they dig into the tensions between how we see ourselves and how we’re seen by others. What does it mean to be recognized—or misrecognized—by the state? How do institutions d...
Feb 28, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Season 12Ep. 173
When nothing is clear, how do we decide? Many people prefer their morality to be straightforward—right or wrong, good or bad, clear as day. But more often than not, human life is a mess of contradictions, competing values, and gray areas. In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions , Rick, Leigh, and Devonya wade into the murky waters of ambiguity—what it means, how we experience it, and why we’re often so uncomfortable with it. From moral dilemmas and political rhetoric to aesthetics and queer theory...
Feb 21, 2025•58 min•Season 12Ep. 172
Can anyone be trusted anymore? Trust is the glue that holds our social world together, yet it’s one of the most fragile bonds we have. In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions , Rick, Leigh, and Devonya dive into the complexities of trust—what it means, how it functions, and why it’s so easy to break but so difficult to restore. From everyday acts of trust, like believing the grocery store clerk’s name tag, to the deep-seated political crisis of trust in institutions and democracy, the hosts explor...
Feb 14, 2025•59 min•Season 12Ep. 171
Who gets to judge right and wrong? And on what grounds? In this episode of Hotel Bar Sessions , Leigh, Rick, and Devonya talk about judgment —what it is, when we need it, and whether it’s a skill or just a faculty of reason. They start with Aristotle’s distinction between knowledge and judgment, move through Kant’s ideas about moral and aesthetic judgment, and consider how judgment functions in ethical reasoning, political life, and even artificial intelligence. The conversation raises questions...
Feb 07, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 12Ep. 170
How, and for what, are we responsible? What does it even mean to be responsible? Is it about blame? Credit? Or something else entirely? Leigh, Devonya, and Rick hash it out over drinks, tackling everything from personal accountability to collective responsibility, and digging into big questions about freedom, moral agency, and how our social and political systems shape what we’re capable of doing—and not doing. This week’s conversation covers some heavy ground: systemic racism, climate change, a...
Jan 31, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Season 12Ep. 169
Is ChatGPT usurping the authority of the "Author"? Or is it just a pretender to the throne? We're opening up the question of "authority" to extend well beyond the usual suspects of kings, generals, or politicians. To borrow a line from Tennyson's poetry: “authority forgets the dying King.” That is, power begins to slip from the grasp of political authorities as they weaken, as respect for and obedience to them wanes. Now almost 60 years after Foucault announced the “death of the author,” we migh...
Jan 24, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 12Ep. 168
The HBS co-hosts savor the complexities of a dish best served cold. Is revenge ever ethical? Can it be a form of justice, or is it always about personal satisfaction? In this episode, Rick Lee, Leigh Johnson, and Devonya Havis take a deep dive into the philosophy of revenge. From the timeless allure of stories like Kill Bill and The Count of Monte Cristo to the rise of cancel culture and online harassment, the hosts explore how revenge plays out in both individual and collective contexts. They t...
Jan 17, 2025•59 min•Season 12Ep. 167
Is "virtue" an outdated concept? And why is there a bear in this classroom?! This week at the hotel bar, Rick, Devonya, and Leigh are digging deep into the idea of virtue . What does it mean to be virtuous? How do we cultivate virtues? Are they timeless ideals or shaped by culture and history? We talk about Aristotle, sure, but we’re also unpacking modern critiques of virtue and asking how power and privilege shape what counts as “virtuous” in the first place. In a world that seems more focused ...
Jan 10, 2025•58 min•Season 12Ep. 166
This week's episode is a REPLAY of a previously-aired episode from Season 9. HBS will return with all new episodes on January 10, 2024. Stay tuned! The HBS hosts wonder how a hard heart is melted and mended. In a world often colored by misunderstandings, hurtful actions, and lingering grudges, the concept of forgiveness emerges as a beacon of hope and healing. For some, its transformative power to mend relationships, free us from the shackles of resentment, and grant us the gift of emotional lib...
Jan 03, 2025•57 min
This week's episode is a REPLAY of a previously-aired episode from Season 9. HBS will return with all new episodes on January 10, 2024. Stay tuned! The HBS hosts dig into Jacque Derrida's philosophy to see if it really is responsible for everything that's wrong with the world. There are very few philosophies that are blamed for so much as deconstruction. Introduced by Jacques Derrida in the late 60s, deconstruction rose to popularity in the late 70s and 80s, fought a real battle to be accepted a...
Dec 27, 2024•57 min
What if morality was law-governed in the same way as logic and physics? The Hotel Bar Sessions hosts close out Season 11 with a deep dive into one of philosophy’s most important moral principles: Immanuel Kant’s “Categorical Imperative.” They carefully unpack Kant’s three formulations of the “moral law”—the Universality formulation, the Humanity formulation, and the Kingdom of Ends formulation—to demonstrate how Kant sought to ground morality in rationality, universality, and freedom. Through ac...
Dec 20, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 11Ep. 165
What if our cosmic unimportance is itself not all that important? This week, the Hotel Bar Sessions hosts welcome Joshua Glasgow , author of The Significance Impulse: On the Unimportance of Our Cosmic Unimportance , to unpack humanity’s seemingly irrepressible drive to seek significance and the societal and psychological effects of this pervasive impulse. Glasgow argues that the quest for cosmic importance is not only unrealistic, but detrimental, and he urges us to embrace our smallness as a pa...
Dec 13, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 11Ep. 164
The HBS hosts survey theories of justice from the ancients to the present. What does it mean to think justice, to pursue justice, or to act justly? Are we servicing justice, or just serving our self-interests? How do different philosophical approaches help us imagine a “just” society? This week, we consider retributive, restorative, and distributive theories, among others, exploring how each shapes our understanding of equality, rights, and fairness, and try to determine which approach provides ...
Dec 06, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 11Ep. 163
What can the Indian dualist philosophy of Sāṃkhya teach us about matter and consciousness? In this captivating episode, we explore the fascinating interplay between matter and consciousness as articulated in Sāṃkhya, a key tradition of Indian philosophy. Joined by special guest Dr. Tuhin Bhattacharjee , whose expertise spans ancient Greek and Indian texts, feminist theory, and psychoanalysis, we consider the interconnectedness of gender and metaphysics, setting the stage for broader discussions ...
Nov 29, 2024•55 min•Season 11Ep. 162
This week, the HBS hosts are joined by Dimitris Vardoulakis (Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western Sydney University ) to discuss the phronetic tradition and its significance for ethics, politics, and democracy. Drawing on both Aristotle and Hannah Arendt’s understanding of agonism in The Human Condition , Vardoulakis connects what he calls the phronetic tradition to human interaction and instrumental thinking, emphasizing its foundation in uncertainty and disagreement. Our conversation w...
Nov 22, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 11Ep. 161
What are the limits of the "human"? And what comes after us? This week, we’re taking on the big questions: What does it mean to be “human,” and is it possible we’re already moving beyond that? Starting with Foucault’s provocative claim that “the human is an invention… perhaps nearing its end,” we look at how history, culture, and technology have shaped—and continue to shape—our understanding of ourselves. Are we still the “rational, autonomous individuals” of the Enlightenment’s humanist legacy,...
Nov 15, 2024•56 min•Season 11Ep. 160
What do we mean when we say "Nature"? And what, if anything, is "natural"? In this week’s episode, we’re pulling up a chair at the bar to ask: What do we really mean when we talk about “nature”? From the world outside us—plants, animals, and landscapes—to the idea of human nature itself, we’re questioning our often contradictory and complex ideas of what counts as “natural.” Are we referring to the non-human world or to something essential and intrinsic within us? And is either way of thinking a...
Nov 08, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 11Ep. 159
Are you there, God? It's us, Hotel Bar Sessions. This week, our co-hosts jump headfirst into one of philosophy’s biggest questions: "Does God exist?" Rick kicks things off by asking whether a final answer would even matter: would knowing God exists (or doesn’t) shift our lives and choices in any real way? Might belief in God itself just be a placeholder for the unknown? Why is the idea of an "Intellligent Designer" or an "Unmoved Mover" or a "First Cause" so compelling, even in the absence of ev...
Nov 01, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 11Ep. 158
When is it right, or even necessary, to say "no"? Refusing can be a powerful act—whether it’s standing up to authority, rejecting harmful norms, or pushing back against injustice. But when is saying “no” the right thing to do? And what are the stakes when we decide to refuse? Often our refusals are quotidian and inconsequential, but sometimes, and sometimes without our knowledge, they’re huge. We often underestimate how often we issue refusals, both large and small, and we don’t consider careful...
Oct 25, 2024•58 min•Season 11Ep. 157
Should we eat meat? Humans have been eating other animals for close to 2.5 million years--a fact that is evidenced by cut traces on fossil animal bones, surviving stone tools, and analyses of our ancestors' teeth. Does this evolutionary fact render meat-eating physiologically necessary and morally justifiable? Our ancestors did a lot of things to survive; is that sufficient reason to continue the practice? How they obtained this meaty source of protein was arguably very different from the indust...
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 11Ep. 156
What can Frantz Fanon and Friedrich Nietzsche teach us about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? This week, we're joined by Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College) to discuss the final chapter of his most recent book The Politics of the Wretched: Race, Reason, and Ressentiment (Bloomsbury, 2024)-- entitled "Zionist ressentiment , the Left, and the Palestinian Question"-- which offers a fresh lens through which to understand the complex affects and power dynamics that continue to fuel this ongoing struggle ...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 11Ep. 155
Philosophy has traditionally associated the feminine with matter, implying passivity. Why? And to what ends? In our previous episode on materialism ( Season 6, Episode 83 ), we came to see that in more recent years, two, often related, forms of materialism have been developed: “new materialism” and feminist materialism. New materialism tends toward a philosophical reflection on advances in science, particularly neuro-science and biology, but feminist materialism is not so easy to define, as it t...
Oct 04, 2024•59 min•Season 11Ep. 154
Are we nearing the end of the "Age of Print"? And, if so, what comes next? The concept of "the Gutenberg Parenthesis" suggests that the era of print – which began in the 15th century, when the printing press was developed by Johan Gutenberg, and extended to the 20th century, when radio and television muscled in – was a unique period for human communication. However, as this week's guest Jeff Jarvis argued in his book The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and Its Lessons for the Age of the ...
Sep 27, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 11Ep. 153
What counts as evidence? What makes it good or bad? How do we know? In court cases, the prosecution, plaintiff, and defendant present “evidence” that something happened or didn’t happen, that it happened in one way or another, that someone did something or did not do something. Evidence is meant to point to something as-yet undetermined. The same goes with scientific evidence, statistical evidence, and anecdotal evidence. Yet, because evidence points to something unknown, sorting it out is often...
Sep 20, 2024•58 min•Season 11Ep. 152
When did Jesus start hating immigrants and gays, and loving guns and capitalism? Many Christians on the political left today no longer recognize the Jesus of the political right in the United States. Despite sharing a text and history, (at least) two dramatically different versions of "Jesus" have emerged in contemporary American Christian discourse, each reflecting a set of moral and political inferences presumably gleaned from the teachings of the historical Jesus, and each set of inferences c...
Sep 13, 2024•52 min•Season 11Ep. 151
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 f...
Sep 07, 2024•55 min
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 considere...
Aug 30, 2024•55 min
