HBS Co-hosts - Hotel Bar Podcast

Hotel Bar Sessions Co-hosts (Season 13-)

Dr. Leigh M. Johnson

Dr. Richard A. Lee

Dr. Talia Mae Bettcher

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.

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

Facebook
Bluesky
TikTok
YouTube
Vimeo
ReadMoreWriteMoreThinkMoreBeMore (personal website)

Philosophy Department,
DePaul University
(Chicago, IL)

Rick Lee is Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. His interests include medieval philosophy, early modern European philosophy, Marx and Marxism–particularly the Frankfurt School, and the philosophy of comedy. He received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland and from The New School for Social Research.

He is the author of The Thought of Matter: Materialism, Conceptuality, and the Thought of Immanence (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015).

Philosophy Department,

California State University, Los Angles

(Los Angeles, CA)

Talia Mae Bettcher is an engaged philosopher who integrates critical reflection with tangible and meaningful action in our lived world. Much of her work in transgender studies flows from her personal experience as a trans woman and through being actively involved in trans community subcultures and grassroots organizing in Los Angeles for the past fifteen years. Her philosophical investigations, even at their most abstract, aim to capture realities that are experienced by flesh and blood people and that can have political and practical consequences (see, for example, “Recommended Models and Policies for LAPD Interactions with Trans Individuals”). Much of this policy was eventually adopted. Click here for more info).

When traditional philosophy has failed her, she has even turned to performance art as a way to explore philosophical trans/gender issues in less conventional ways. Her hope is that others can gain real benefit from her philosophical work – as a challenge to think more deeply about gender and sex, and perhaps even as a new way of thinking about things.

At Cal State-LA, Talia served as chair of the Academic Senate (2020-2022), chair of the Philosophy Department (2012-2018), and director of the Center for the Study of Genders and Sexualities (2008-11). Some of the courses she teaches include Introduction to Transgender Studies, Introduction to Trans/Feminism, Philosophy, Gender, and Culture, Philosophy of Self, Early Modern Philosophy, The Philosophy of George Berkeley, and The Meaning of Life.

Her most recent book, Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy, was published by University of Minnesota Press in 20205.