HBS Co-hosts - Hotel Bar Podcast

Hotel Bar Sessions Co-hosts (Season 14-)

Dr. Leigh M. Johnson

Dr. Jennifer Kling

Dr. Robert "Bob" Vallier

Philosophy and Religion Department,
American University
(Washington, D.C.)

Leigh completed her BA in Philosophy at the University of Memphis, her MA in Philosophy at Villanova University, and her PhD in Philosophy (with a doctoral minor in African and African-American Studies) at The Pennsylvania State University. She wrote her dissertation on Derrida, truth commissions, and transitional justice, but her current teaching and research primarily focuses on the ethics and politics of emergent technologies.

You can watch her short documentary film Working in Memphis here, check out some of her innovative pedagogy here, and listen to her first foray into podcasting Black Mirror Reflections, in which she interviewed leading experts and asked them to reflect on the moral, philosophical, and technological insights of the television series Black Mirror.

She is currently at work on her manuscript, tentatively entitled Algorithmic Nostalgia.

You can find Leigh all over Beyoncé’s internet at the following links:

Facebook
Bluesky
TikTok
YouTube
Vimeo
ReadMoreWriteMoreThinkMoreBeMore (personal website)

Leigh is the Executive Producer and Editot of Hotel Bar Sessions.

Department of Philosophy,
University of Colorado-Colorado Springs
(Colorado Springs, CO)

Jennifer Kling is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Legal Studies at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Her research focuses on social and political philosophy, particularly issues in war and peace, protest, feminism, and philosophy of race. She is the author of Contemporary Politics and Classical Chinese Thought: Toward Globalizing Political Philosophy (with Colin J. Lewis, Oxford 2024), Can War Be Justified? A Debate (with Andrew Fiala, Routledge 2023), Racist, Not Racist, Antiracist: Language and the Dynamic Disaster of American Racism (with Leland Harper, Lexington 2022), The Philosophy of Protest: Fighting for Justice without Going to War (with Megan Mitchell, Rowman & Littlefield 2021), War Refugees: Risk, Justice, and Moral Responsibility (Lexington 2019), and numerous articles in academic journals and edited collections. She is also the President (2024-2025) of Concerned Philosophers for Peace, the largest, most active organization of professional philosophers in North America involved in the analysis of the causes of war and prospects for peace.

Jen grew up in Indiana and received a BA in English and Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MA in Philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to Colorado Springs, she taught for three years at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan. In her spare time, she whitewater kayaks, does aerial silks, reads voraciously, and is hopelessly addicted to Skittles.

Independent Scholar,

(Paris, France)

Originally from Flint before the bad water, Bob got his PhD at DePaul University, concentrating in French phenomenology in German idealism, which it turns out it’s not a marketable combination. After many years as a itinerary visiting assistan, professor or adjunct, Bob finally read the writing on the wall and became an academic administrator, which at least has the advantage of being a series of finite tasks. In April 2009, he got both a grant and his Italian passport so move back to Europe and has lived in Paris and Florence. He still teaches as an adjunct at study abroad program and higher Ed institutions in Paris. For shits and giggles, he pretends to be a stand-up comedian at night.