Hotel Bar Sessions

The HBS hosts discuss the style of "too late" capitalism with Anna Kornbluh. Immediacy would seem to be the defining cultural style of our moment. From video to social media and from autofiction to autotheory, the tendency is towards direct intensity of experience and away from the mediations of form, genre, and representation. What drives this turn to the immediate in art, culture, and even politics? What do we lose in this turn to immediacy? Anna Kornbluh, author of Immediacy: Or, the Style of Too Late Capitalism, joins us to discuss the effects of "disintermediation."Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-130-immediacy-with-anna-kornbluh-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts discuss the many paradoxes of ennui. Most of our podcast episodes are about “big” issues, “interesting” topics, “provocative” conversations, or “important” matters… but the truth is that the overwhelming majority of our day-to-day lives is dominated by ennui. Boredom. Tedium. Lethargy. Lassitude. Or, in more common parlance, “the blahs.”Voltaire famously claimed (in The Prodigal Son) “all genres are allowed, except the boring genre." It’s easy to see why this is the case for artistic works of fiction, but it also seems to have been true for topics of philosophical reflection as well. Given that boredom is such a ubiquitous part of our human experience, why don’t we have a better theory of it?The curious thing about reflecting on the topic of “boredom” is, of course, that the very act of reflecting upon it makes it “interesting.” To wit, is it even possible to reflect on the experience of boredom as such?Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-129-boredom-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts discuss how the Luddites were right about why we hate our jobs. The term “luddite” generally functions as an insult these days. It is something people are accused of, and a term that no one would claim for themselves. To adopt and adapt to new technologies is part of what it means to be progressive and modern, not to mention hip. However, the history of actually existing technologies paints a different picture, technologies from the laptop to the cellphone have been used to extend the working day and insert consumption into the pores of social life. Is it time to reconsider what it means to be luddite? Joining us to discuss Luddism is Gavin Mueller, author of Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites were Right About Why You Hate Your Job.Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-128-breaking-things-at-work-with-gavin-mueller-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts parse the difference between mistakes, half-truths, embellishments, and outright lies. George Costanza (from the TV series Seinfeld) once insisted: “It’s not a lie if you believe it.” This seems both true and false. It's certainly wrong to claim that someone lied accidentally, so intention, and therefore knowing what you are saying is not true, appears to be a necessary part of what it is to lie. Yet, the “if you believe it” part often operates like a “get out of jail free" card, and none of us can really know the intentions of another. Kant famously argued that I have a duty to tell the truth in all cases, no matter the consequences... which leads one to wonder: if I'm aiding a friend by sheltering them from an abusive partner, when that partner knocks on the door and asks if my friend is inside, must I tell the truth? And what about a friend who asks you if you like their new tattoo?Finally, what happens to lying in an age, arguably like ours, when the truth counts for so little? Might we be in the awkward position of hoping for an age in which we can actually lie again?Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-127-lying-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

 The HBS hosts consider the sands through the hourglass. It seems as if, when we’re young, the solution to all of our problems is just getting older—when will people take me seriously? when will I understand my own body? when will I gain the confidence to assert my own will? or, just be myself? Then, as we age, it paradoxically occurs to us that the only solution to our problems is to be young again: if I only knew then what I know now, if I only had a chance to do that thing over, if I only could move like when I was young, if I only had my whole future ahead of me ….This week, we're talking about the phenomenology, the physicality, and the psychology of growing old(er). Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-125-growing-older-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS discuss Hegel, the black radical tradition, and the history of Philosophy with Biko Mandela Gray and Ryan J. Johnson.This week we are joined by Biko Mandela Gray and Ryan J. Johnson to talk about their book Phenomenology of Black Spirit, which reads Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit against the tradition of black thought from Frederick Douglass to Angela Davis. It is a stunning demonstration of a relationship to philosophy that is at once creative, breaking the boundaries between exegesis and history, and politically committed, reading for the struggle for liberation. It is a book that profoundly challenges what it means to do philosophy, and raises the question as to what philosophy offers the struggle for abolition and black liberation. In our conversation we talk about the book, Hegel, dialectics, and what it means to do philosophy. Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-125-the-phenomenology-of-black-spirit-with-biko-mandela-gray-and-ryan-johnson-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotelbarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts discuss post-COVID demands to get "back to normal."In 2020 the NCAA canceled its basketball tournaments for the year. Over the next several months, mitigation measures became more widespread and strict. In some places more quickly than others, we all eventually “returned to normal.” Did we though? In some ways, normalcy seems to be an irresistible pull. But is “normalcy” not the same as the status quo? And shouldn’t we be critical of both? We can look at other contexts in which we either have found a normalcy or feel the need to get back to normal: Climate change (who is doing anything about it?), anti-democratic presidents (well, that’s just the new normal!), xenophobia is now a baseline in the U.S., the Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, the list can go on and on. It is the "new" normal? And what do we do about the intransigence of normality?Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-124-back-to-normal-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotebarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts chat about heroes without capes. In a world saturated with fictional caped crusaders and masked vigilantes, we want to redirect our attention to the unsung champions who make a tangible impact in the lives of others, in other words, “real life” people who display acts of courage, compassion and commitment and who transcend the confines of comic book fantasies.Not all heroes wear flashy costumes or flashy costumes, and they don’t all possess superhuman abilities. Often, they emerge from diverse but garden-variety backgrounds, with regular lives and more or less regular jobs, but find a way to navigate challenges that test the limits of human fortitude, and mange to exhibit the skills or qualities of character that we want to emulate.What makes a “real life hero” heroic? And how can we keep ourselves from turning them into idols? Are heroes a "childish" fantasy that we should dispense with, or are they necessary to character formation?Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-123-real-life-heroes-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotebarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

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 as something other than a “fad” in the early 90s, and really built up steam in the late 90s, after having been adopted by other humanities disciplines as a method of analysis and exposition. However, by the end of the 21st century aughts, deconstruction was already being edged out of favor by many of its critics and some of its heirs. Today, in 2024, deconstruction has been refigured and disfigured so dramatically that it has become a chimera. One of its faces is reductive and banal, but mostly harmless, as seen in so-called “deconstructed” dishes or clothing on reality TV. The other face, though, is hyperbolically menacing: distorting reality, poisoning discourse, undermining traditional values, and sneakily turning all of us into nonsense-babbling relativists.So what is deconstruction all about?Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-122-deconstruction-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotebarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

The HBS hosts return to the movies to learn why men are cheaper than guns.The Magnificent Seven, produced in 1960 and directed by John Sturges, has a significant place in the history of the western in the U.S. Some have claimed that it is, in fact, the last true western. In fact, the movie practically says this itself. It is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film, The Seven Samurai, placing it in a different genre and a different cultural context. Kurosawa, apparently, told Sturges that he loved the film. The Magnificent Seven deals with questions of the use of force, the capitalist function of thieves and bandits, the meaning of courage, and the loss that war brings. And it has an amazing score, written by Elmer Bernstein. So why are we watching this film? “It seemed like a good idea at the time!”Full episode notes available at this link:https://hotelbarpodcast.com/podcast/episode-121-hbs-goes-the-the-movies-the-magnificent-seven-1960-------------------If you enjoy Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, please be sure to subscribe and submit a rating/review! Better yet, you can support this podcast by signing up to be one of our Patrons at patreon.com/hotebarsessions!Follow us on Twitter/X @hotelbarpodcast, on Facebook, on TikTok, and subscribe to our YouTube channel!   ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★