Hotel Bar Sessions

The HBS hosts take a look at the political, philosophical, cultural, and personal dimensions of nostalgia. Full episode notes at this link.

For Episode 6, the HBS hosts take a look at several of the metrics by which we are rated and ranked. We talk about grading, student evaluations, the Philosophical Gourmet Report (in professional Philosophy), social media algorithms, China's social credit systems, and we delve into some of Cathy O'Neal's arguments in *Weapons of Math Destruction.* Full episode notes at this link.

For Episode 5, the HBS hosts consider the last year living with COVID: what can we not believe that we did before COVID? what can't we wait to get back to doing? and what do we hope we never go back to doing?Full episode notes at this link.

For Episode 4, the HBS hosts look into the stories we tell, whether or not they are true, and what happens when those stories fall apart. Specifically, they discuss the various ways that origins are grounded in myths, documents, and self-narratives. By way of access into these problems, they take on the new Netflix series, Murder Among the Mormons, which centers around the story of Mark Hoffman, a master forger and murderer. What does it mean to have a physical document versus an oral

For Episode 3, Leigh M. Johnson is in the hot seat to explain why philosophers should be thinking more about emergent technologies. Co-hosts Shannon and Ammon make her seat hotter with questions about what counts as "intelligence," how close we are to the Singularity, whether robots will have feelings or should have rights, and which emergent technologies we should be excited (and worried) about in the near future.Full episode notes at this link.

For Episode 2, Ammon Allred is in the hot seat to explain how thinking about aesthetic experience more seriously can free us from the hold of normativity. Co-hosts Leigh and Shannon make his seat hotter by forcing him to listen and respond to an atonal polka rendition of The National Anthem and then asking questions about what counts as art, what aesthetic experience does for us, whether or not none-human animals and machines can produce art (or have aesthetic experiences), and karaoke.Full

For our first episode of HBS, Shannon Mussett is in the hot seat to explain how the existentialist conception of freedom remains useful and important for Philosophy. Co-hosts Ammon and Leigh make her seat hotter with questions about how "radical" human freedom is, whether or not it is an illusion, why Shannon feels the urge to spontaneously drop babies, and the possibility of freedom for non-human animals, Nature, or machines.Check out the full episode notes at this link.