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A podcast where the real philosophy happens.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ contemporary philosophy over drinks • power, oppression, resistance, civil obedience • democracy, sovereignty, totalitarianism • capitalism, tech platforms, AI, doomscrolling • identity, gender, privacy • trust, expertise, interpretation • pain, therapy, time, comedyThis podcast is a conversational philosophy show that treats the “barroom” setting as a pretext for serious, wide-ranging inquiry. Across episodes, the hosts use contemporary culture and political life as entry points into classic philosophical problems, moving between conceptual analysis, intellectual history, and the moral stakes of living together under pressure. The discussions often connect abstract questions—about freedom, time, interpretation, metaphysics, universals, and imagination—to everyday experience and public controversy.
A major throughline is political philosophy and social critique. The show returns frequently to how power operates through institutions and norms: law and obedience, sovereignty, totalitarianism, ideological campaigns, expertise and distrust, the state’s role in shaping identity, and the changing character of democracy. It also examines how economic and technological systems shape agency and attention, including platform dynamics, datafication, and habits of media consumption. Universities and public intellectual life appear as recurring sites of conflict over legitimacy, governance, and the purposes of education.
Another core theme is oppression and resistance, approached through feminist theory, trans philosophy, race and colonialism, and questions about recognition and misrecognition. Rather than focusing only on overt protest, the podcast explores quieter or indirect forms of resistance, the moral ambiguity of compliance and noncooperation, and how norms like decorum and silence can both stabilize social life and suppress dissent.
Interwoven with these political concerns are episodes centered on affect, embodiment, and personal vulnerability—pain, illness, therapy, major life changes, panic, nostalgia, cringe, and comedy—treated as philosophically revealing experiences. The show is comfortable mixing scholarly references (from Aristotle and Aquinas to Arendt, Foucault, Butler, and Marxist traditions) with popular examples and contemporary rhetoric, often asking how language, argument, and performance shape what counts as truth, responsibility, and judgment in public life.
| Episodes: |
MINIBAR: Algorithmic Nostalgia (with Leigh M. Johnson)2026-Jan-16 34 minutes |
MINIBAR: Uncivil Obedience (with Jen Kling)2026-Jan-09 11 minutes |
MINIBAR: Pain (with Bob Vallier)2026-Jan-02 13 minutes |
Marilyn Frye's "Oppression"2025-Dec-26 54 minutes |
Nostalgia2025-Dec-19 52 minutes |
Sophistry2025-Dec-12 55 minutes |
The Enshittification of... everything?2025-Dec-05 63 minutes |
Quiet Resistance (with Tamara Fakhoury)2025-Nov-28 56 minutes |
Therapy2025-Nov-21 58 minutes |
Furious Minds (with Laura K. Field)2025-Nov-14 62 minutes |
Imagination (with Stephen T. Asma)2025-Nov-07 58 minutes |
Comedy2025-Oct-31 60 minutes |
The Hills We Die on2025-Oct-24 69 minutes |
Meet the NEW Co-Hosts!2025-Oct-17 39 minutes |
Eternity2025-Oct-10 64 minutes |
Crowds and Mobs2025-Oct-03 50 minutes |
Free Will (with Mark Balaguer)2025-Sep-26 60 minutes |
How The Manosphere Killed Cool (with Robin James)2025-Sep-19 63 minutes |
The "Expertise" Crisis2025-Sep-12 57 minutes |
MINIBAR: Cancer2025-Sep-05 20 minutes |
MINIBAR: In Defense of Metaphysics2025-Aug-29 16 minutes |
MINIBAR: Living in Occupied D.C.2025-Aug-22 14 minutes |
Arendt's "Banality of Evil"2025-Aug-15 65 minutes |
Major Life Changes2025-Aug-08 60 minutes |
Doomscrolling2025-Aug-01 60 minutes |
NPC Energy2025-Jul-25 70 minutes |
Public Philosophy (with Kate Manne)2025-Jul-18 61 minutes |
Silence2025-Jul-11 63 minutes |
The War on "Radical Ideology"2025-Jul-04 55 minutes |
Sovereignty2025-Jun-27 56 minutes |
Interpretation2025-Jun-20 72 minutes |
Panic Now? (with Ira Allen)2025-Jun-13 64 minutes |
Private Parts2025-Jun-06 57 minutes |
The Future of the University2025-May-30 76 minutes |
Cringe2025-May-23 65 minutes |
Tragic Temporality (with Sean Kirkland)2025-May-16 66 minutes |
What is Philosophy?2025-May-09 59 minutes |
REPLAY: Zionist ressentiment, the Left, and the Palestinian Question (with Zahi Zalloua)2025-May-02 62 minutes |
REPLAY: Trans Philosophy (with Talia Mae Bettcher)2025-Apr-25 58 minutes |
Fearless Speech (Foucault on Parrhesia)2025-Apr-18 67 minutes |
Are Universals "Real"?2025-Apr-11 50 minutes |
Totalitarianism (with Peg Birmingham)2025-Apr-04 49 minutes |
El roto, Lo huachafo, Lo jodido (with Carlos Amador)2025-Mar-28 57 minutes |
The Establishment Clause2025-Mar-21 54 minutes |
DEI Then and Now (with Paul Breines)2025-Mar-14 55 minutes |
Decorum2025-Mar-07 56 minutes |
Unruly Identity (with Falguni Sheth)2025-Feb-28 65 minutes |
Ambiguity2025-Feb-21 58 minutes |
Trust2025-Feb-14 59 minutes |
Judgment2025-Feb-07 62 minutes |
Responsibility2025-Jan-31 62 minutes |
Authority2025-Jan-24 65 minutes |
Revenge2025-Jan-17 58 minutes |
Virtue2025-Jan-10 58 minutes |
REPLAY: Forgiveness2025-Jan-03 56 minutes |
REPLAY: Deconstruction2024-Dec-27 56 minutes |
Kant's Categorical Imperative2024-Dec-20 66 minutes |
The Significance Impulse (with Josh Glasgow)2024-Dec-13 64 minutes |
Justice2024-Dec-06 66 minutes |
Matter and Consciousness in Indian Philosophy (with Tuhin Bhattacharjee)2024-Nov-29 55 minutes |
Ethics, Democracy, and Phronesis (with Dimitris Vardoulakis)2024-Nov-22 64 minutes |
Posthumanism2024-Nov-15 56 minutes |
Nature2024-Nov-08 60 minutes |
Does God Exist?2024-Nov-01 77 minutes |
The Ethics of Refusal (with Devonya Havis)2024-Oct-25 58 minutes |
Meat2024-Oct-18 65 minutes |
Zionist ressentiment, the Left, and the Palestinian Question (with Zahi Zalloua)2024-Oct-11 62 minutes |
Aristotle and Feminist Materialism, Troubled (with Emanuela Bianchi)2024-Oct-04 59 minutes |
The Gutenberg Parenthesis (with Jeff Jarvis)2024-Sep-27 64 minutes |
Evidence2024-Sep-20 58 minutes |
Whose Jesus? (with John D. Caputo)2024-Sep-13 52 minutes |
REPLAY: The Master/Slave Dialectic2024-Sep-07 55 minutes |
REPLAY: Punching Nazis (with Devin Shaw)2024-Aug-30 55 minutes |
Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation2024-Aug-23 55 minutes |
Voting2024-Aug-16 52 minutes |
The Future of Journalism (with Andrea Guzman)2024-Aug-09 58 minutes |
Overcoming Sexuality (with Nir Kedem)2024-Aug-02 54 minutes |
Peer Review2024-Jul-26 54 minutes |
Ideology and Self-Emancipation (with William Clare Roberts)2024-Jul-19 59 minutes |
The Sublime2024-Jul-12 55 minutes |
Off-Grid Living (with Eric Mack)2024-Jul-05 59 minutes |
Ideology2024-Jun-28 55 minutes |
Generative AI2024-Jun-21 56 minutes |
Reality TV2024-Jun-14 50 minutes |
Friendship2024-Jun-07 58 minutes |
Personhood2024-May-31 54 minutes |
Originality2024-May-24 54 minutes |
HBS Goes to the Movies: "Joe Versus the Volcano" (1990)2024-May-17 53 minutes |
MINIBAR EPISODE: Will The Courts Save Democracy?2024-May-10 22 minutes |
MINIBAR EPISODE: Meet Our New Co-host, David Gunkel!2024-May-03 24 minutes |
REPLAY: YouTube's Alt-Right Rabbit Hole (with Caleb Cain)2024-Apr-26 60 minutes |
Jean-Paul Sartre's "Bad Faith"2024-Apr-19 65 minutes |
Companion Animals2024-Apr-12 56 minutes |
Psychoanalysis (with Benedetta Todaro)2024-Apr-05 60 minutes |
Whose Anthropocene?2024-Mar-29 53 minutes |
Academic Freedom2024-Mar-22 54 minutes |
Immediacy (with Anna Kornbluh)2024-Mar-15 57 minutes |
Boredom2024-Mar-08 53 minutes |
Breaking Things at Work (with Gavin Mueller)2024-Mar-01 70 minutes |
Lying2024-Feb-23 53 minutes |
Growing Old(er)2024-Feb-16 56 minutes |
The Phenomenology of Black Spirit (with Biko Mandela Gray and Ryan Johnson)2024-Feb-09 51 minutes |
Back to "Normal"2024-Feb-02 54 minutes |
Real Life Heroes2024-Jan-26 59 minutes |
Deconstruction2024-Jan-19 56 minutes |
HBS Goes to the Movies: "The Magnificent Seven" (1960)2024-Jan-12 57 minutes |
Decartes' Second Meditation2023-Dec-08 50 minutes |
Trust2023-Dec-01 59 minutes |
Thought Leaders (with Christopher P. Long)2023-Nov-24 70 minutes |
Trans Philosophy (with Talia Mae Bettcher)2023-Nov-17 58 minutes |
The Stories We Tell2023-Nov-10 59 minutes |
Collegiality2023-Nov-03 63 minutes |
Debt2023-Oct-27 55 minutes |
Political Philosophy of Mind (with John Protevi)2023-Oct-20 54 minutes |
Fan Culture2023-Oct-13 57 minutes |
The Problem Spaces of Philosophy (with William Paris)2023-Oct-06 59 minutes |
The Uncanny Valley2023-Sep-29 63 minutes |
Jordan Peele's Horror (with Johanna Isaacson)2023-Sep-22 59 minutes |
The Subversive Seventies (with Michael Hardt)2023-Sep-15 51 minutes |
Forgiveness2023-Sep-08 56 minutes |
HBS Goes to the Movies: "Hands on a Hardbody" (1997)2023-Sep-01 59 minutes |
REPLAY: Death2023-Aug-25 59 minutes |
REPLAY: Revolutionary Mathematics (with Justin Joque)2023-Aug-18 54 minutes |
The Master/Slave Dialectic2023-Aug-11 55 minutes |
Too Soon?2023-Aug-04 52 minutes |
Tenure2023-Jul-28 48 minutes |
Prestige TV2023-Jul-21 68 minutes |
Hobbies2023-Jul-14 58 minutes |
What's YOUR Philosophy?2023-Jul-07 56 minutes |
Community2023-Jun-30 57 minutes |
Gossip2023-Jun-23 56 minutes |
Men and Masculinity (with Nathan Duford)2023-Jun-16 57 minutes |
Gatekeeping2023-Jun-09 49 minutes |
Punching Nazis (with Devin Shaw)2023-Jun-02 55 minutes |
Progress2023-May-26 57 minutes |
The University and its Discontents2023-May-19 54 minutes |
Lazy Relativism2023-May-12 58 minutes |
HBS Goes to the Movies: The Conversation (1974)2023-May-05 56 minutes |
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REPLAY: The Public Intellectual (with Eddie Glaude, Jr.) 2023-Apr-28 63 minutes |
REPLAY: Vulgarity2023-Apr-21 55 minutes |
REPLAY: YouTube's Alt-Right Rabbit Hole (with Caleb Cain)2023-Apr-15 61 minutes |
REPLAY: Robots (with David Gunkel)2023-Apr-07 72 minutes |
The Allegory of the Cave2023-Mar-31 56 minutes |
Late Capitalism2023-Mar-24 60 minutes |
ChatGPT2023-Mar-17 55 minutes |
Death2023-Mar-10 58 minutes |
Fascism (with Alberto Toscano)2023-Mar-03 53 minutes |
Bullshit Jobs2023-Feb-24 50 minutes |
Abolition of the Family (with Sophie Lewis)2023-Feb-17 61 minutes |
Influencers2023-Feb-10 48 minutes |
Afterthoughts: Season 6, Eps 79-812023-Feb-09 32 minutes |
Materialism2023-Feb-03 48 minutes |
Afterthoughts: Season 6, Eps 76-782023-Feb-01 47 minutes |
Hospitality (with Michael Naas)2023-Jan-27 56 minutes |
Attention and Distraction2023-Jan-20 55 minutes |
The History of Philosophy2023-Jan-13 57 minutes |
Revolutionary Mathematics (with Justin Joque)2023-Jan-06 53 minutes |
Human Nature2022-Dec-30 57 minutes |
HBS Goes to the Movies: Casablanca2022-Dec-23 52 minutes |
REPLAY: Whose History? (with Dr. Charles McKinney)2022-Oct-28 66 minutes |
REPLAY: Style2022-Oct-25 62 minutes |
Podcasting and Philosophy2022-Oct-14 55 minutes |
The Last Dance2022-Oct-07 53 minutes |
Artificial Personhood (with Regina Rini)2022-Sep-30 57 minutes |
The Rights of Nature (with Stewart Motha)2022-Sep-23 59 minutes |
Critics and Criticism (with A.O. Scott)2022-Sep-16 55 minutes |
Democracy in Peril (with Linda Alcoff)2022-Sep-09 57 minutes |
Fear2022-Sep-02 55 minutes |
YouTube's Alt-Right Rabbit Hole (with Caleb Cain)2022-Aug-26 60 minutes |
Rethinking Disability (with Joel Michael Reynolds)2022-Aug-19 53 minutes |
Sex Robots (with Kate Devlin)2022-Aug-12 65 minutes |
The Blues (with Charles L. Hughes)2022-Aug-05 62 minutes |
Memes (with Andrew Baron)2022-Jul-29 62 minutes |
Reason2022-Jul-22 55 minutes |
Plagiarism2022-Jul-15 64 minutes |
The Public Intellectual (with Eddie Glaude, Jr.)2022-Jul-08 63 minutes |
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics2022-Jun-17 57 minutes |
Queers (with Ladelle McWhorter)2022-Jun-10 56 minutes |
Utopia2022-Jun-03 57 minutes |
Philosophers on the Internet2022-May-27 56 minutes |
Musical Theater2022-May-20 62 minutes |
National Identity2022-May-13 61 minutes |
Algorithms2022-May-06 62 minutes |
Metaphysics2022-Apr-29 55 minutes |
Immortality2022-Apr-22 53 minutes |
Moral Subjectivity2022-Apr-15 65 minutes |
Desire2022-Apr-08 64 minutes |
Memory2022-Apr-01 63 minutes |
The Simulation Hypothesis2022-Mar-25 62 minutes |
Style2022-Mar-18 62 minutes |
Bars2022-Mar-10 66 minutes |
Turning Up the Heat2022-Feb-11 65 minutes |
The Godfather Trilogy2022-Feb-04 70 minutes |
Superstition2022-Jan-28 64 minutes |
Optimism and Pessimism2022-Jan-21 56 minutes |
Tourism2022-Jan-14 58 minutes |
Resolve2022-Jan-07 55 minutes |
Work2021-Dec-31 62 minutes |
Social Media2021-Dec-24 61 minutes |
Transcendence2021-Dec-17 57 minutes |
The Global South2021-Dec-10 48 minutes |
Legally Right, Morally Wrong2021-Dec-03 60 minutes |
Cancel Panic2021-Nov-26 62 minutes |
Thought Experiments2021-Nov-19 64 minutes |
American Christianity2021-Nov-12 58 minutes |
Whose History?2021-Nov-05 66 minutes |
Robots2021-Oct-08 71 minutes |
Defending the Humanities2021-Oct-01 69 minutes |
Generations2021-Sep-24 64 minutes |
The Hustle2021-Sep-17 54 minutes |
Music2021-Sep-10 61 minutes |
Guns2021-Sep-03 62 minutes |
Specialization2021-Aug-27 59 minutes |
Superheroes2021-Aug-20 63 minutes |
White Working Class2021-Aug-13 58 minutes |
Conspiracy Theories2021-Aug-06 59 minutes |
Vulgarity2021-Jul-30 55 minutes |
Laughter2021-Jul-23 58 minutes |
Digital Afterlives2021-Jul-16 63 minutes |
Citizenship2021-Jul-09 57 minutes |
Private Cities2021-Jul-02 55 minutes |
Hey, Biden!2021-Jun-04 57 minutes |
Shame2021-May-28 56 minutes |
Teaching2021-May-21 62 minutes |
WhoDunnIt?2021-May-14 63 minutes |
Privacy2021-May-07 60 minutes |
Love2021-Apr-30 55 minutes |
The Philosophical Canon2021-Apr-23 57 minutes |
Apocalypse(s)2021-Apr-16 58 minutes |
Nostalgia2021-Apr-09 64 minutes |
Metrics2021-Apr-02 60 minutes |
One Year with COVID2021-Mar-26 48 minutes |
Origins2021-Mar-19 49 minutes |
Leigh M. Johnson on Technology2021-Mar-12 51 minutes |
Ammon Allred on Art2021-Mar-12 57 minutes |
Shannon M. Mussett on Freedom2021-Mar-12 56 minutes |