State of the Human

Whether or not there's a cape, a sword, or a noble steed involved, we all go on quests. We leave the comforts and routines of ordinary life in search of a light that hovers just beyond the horizon. In the old days, it was a better trade route, a new world, the holy grail. It's much the same today. But what is it about the quest that makes it so different from merely reaching for a goal? And what makes it worth leaving everything else behind? In this episode, a girl named Rachel searches the world in a quest for her holy grail. Accompanying her is an academic all-star named Bobby, who is questing for certain kind of community. In our last piece, a film editor named Giusepi goes on a quest around America for a better way to serve people. Producers: Rachel Hamburg and Sophia Paliza Host: Rachel Hamburg Featuring: Bobby Holley, Daniela Bize, Guisepi the Tea Guy Music: Cam Deas, Black Twig and Steve Gunn, Fred van Eps, Victor Herbert Orchestra, James Blackshaw, Loren MazzaCane Connors, The Oo-Ray, Broke for Free, and Phil Reavis More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season-4/345-episode-409-questing.html

What is it like to be a student who has fought in a war? In this episode, six Stanford students and recent alumni, all veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tell their stories. With thoughtfulness, humor, and stone cold honesty, they share with us their decision to join, their experiences in boot camp, living and fighting in Iraq, and their eventual return home to civilian and student life. This is your chance to listen. Producers: Xandra Clark and Natacha Ruck Hosts: Natacha Ruck and Xandra Clark Featuring: Dustin Barfield, Chris Clark, Josh Francis, Annie Hsieh, Heidi Toll, Russ Toll, and William Treseder Music and scoring by Eoin Callery More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season-4/327-episode-408-returning-home.html more info about this episode here: http://bit.ly/sspveterans In April 2013, this story won The General Oliver P. Smith Award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation. More info about the award here: http://www.marineheritage.org/Awards.asp Warning: this episode contains explicit language

October is full of ghosts, but in our show we will not be talking about little kids who wear white sheets. We're embracing the unseen, and talking about haunting: how things we can't see nonetheless press upon us, affect our choices, our actions, and sometimes even our beliefs. We'll be talking about the ghosts that inhabit California's highways, about a spirit who is very hungry, about the ghosts of our past selves that persist inside each of us, and finally, we'll bring you "What Can Be Named," the story of a young man haunted by a country. Producers: Rachel Hamburg and Christy Hartman Host: Christy Hartman Featuring: Dr. Nicholas Jenkins, Dong-Nghi Huynh, Dr. Joshua Landy, Nina Foushee Music: California Ramblers, Neuroleptic Trio, Coda, Sunhiilow, Dan Friel, Broken Gadget, Zoë Lidstrom, Carnivorous Snowflake, Gist, Jason Marey,Owen Callery and Silvio Rodriguez. More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season-4/329-episode-407-haunting.html

We all come from somewhere—and then life happens. In college maybe more than anywhere else, you're stuck between two worlds. This week on our show, the story of the Chi Theta Chi co-op, one of the most unusual houses at Stanford, and its residents' fight to preserve their independence from the university. Plus a story of animals being trained to act, a near death experience, and other tales of liminality. Producer: Charlie Mintz Host: Natacha Ruck Featuring: Sam CC, Abel Allison, Elif Tasar, Gerad Hanono, Adam Pearson, Nathaniel Nelson, Deborah Golder, and Logan Hehn music by Mississippi John Hurt, Colleen, The Norskadelen Trio, Anaïs Mitchell More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season-4/309-episode-406-in-between.html

When asked what trait they want to instill in their children, most parents answer “honesty.” But in truth, learning to lie is a crucial part of childhood. This week, we take a deep look at how and why we learn to lie, and what lying does to you. Our first story investigates the most common lie of the western world and how it ushers us into the world of lies. Our second story is about the irrepressible urge to tell the truth, and our third and final story is about lying as a form of love. Producer: Natacha Ruck Featuring: Joshua Hoyt, Victoria Hurst, Poncie Rutsch, Christy Hartman, Dana Kletter, Dr. Gail Heyman, Dr. Karl Rosengren, Anish Mitra, Ian Girard, Rebekah Morreale, and Ashley Artmann. More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season-4/301-episode-405-lying.html

This week on our show, four stories of giving. First, it's a story about a charity fundraiser, and the woman who comes to question why fundraisers even exist. Then it's the story of a t-shirt entrepreneur's attempt to send one million shirts to Africa. Third, it's two interviews with people who had to decide if they were willing to donate bone marrow. Last, the story of Odyssey Works, a group of artists that create works of art for a single person. Producer: Charlie Mintz Featuring: Rachel Hamburg, Will Rogers, Jason Sadler, Saundra Schimmelpfennig, TMS Ruge, Nick Hartley, Mandeep Gill, Kristina Kulin, Abraham Burickson, and Jen Harmon More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season-4/265-episode-403-how-to-give.html

Since the days of Narcissus and the looking pool, we've known there's a danger in seeing ourselves. There's a possibility of caring too much, or seeing something we don't want to see. But that hasn't stopped humans from trying to see more and more. Today we have more ways to see ourselves than ever before. So it's time to take a look at looking. What do we want to see, and what do we do with that information? Today on our show, four stories of people who tried to see themselves clearly. A woman views her genetic profile, and learns why her tendency towards depression might be an asset. A true mirror--one that doesn't reverse your image--is deployed on Stanford students. A personality test called the Meyers Briggs profile is taken to the max. And a girl explains her point system that lets her keep track of exactly how people feel about her. Producer: Jonah Willihnganz Host: Xandra Clark Featuring: Daniel Steinbock, Lone Frank, Colleen Caleshu, Hank Greely, John Nantz, Rachel Hamburg, Xandra Clark, Iris Clayter, Christy Hartman, and Alexzandra Scully More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season-4/263-episode-402-seeing-ourselves.html

Almost 100 years ago, a rogue geologist named Alfred Wegener proposed his theory of continental drift. It didn't matter that he was right. He was laughed off the stage. And even though he spent the rest of his career proving his theory, he died unknown. But eventually the theory of continental drift was accepted. Talk about resilience. That's our theme this week and we have five stories of people discovering resilience and how to become resilient. In Wegenerʼs day, people thought character was like the continents, fixed. Either you were a resilient person or you werenʼt. Today we know we can cultivate resilience. We can all become Wegeners. Producer: Jonah Willihnganz Featuring: Jessica Talbert, Jordan Raymond, Michelle Powers, Adina Glickman, Michael Zeligs, Jane Reynolds More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season-4/245-episode-401-resilience.html

Firsthand, empirical knowledge is a way of knowing we modern humans have gotten away from. The atomic number of carbon, the height of Mt. Kilimanjaro, how ant colonies work--these are things most of us never figure out ourselves. And fortunately, we don't have to. Yet, on that tricky matter of how to be a human, how to live well, what to do with ourselves, we are left all alone. There's no blueprint, no roadmap. We have to figure it out ourselves. Today on our show, three stories of people doing just that--making mistakes to learn how to live. First, a graduate student comes to a professor with a problem involving men. How does she solve it? Trial and error. Next, a story about a drastic case of trial and error, trepanation, the drilling of a hole in the skull. Last, the story of one man who spent fifteen years trying to believe something he just didn't know if he could believe. Who succeeds? Who fails? And was it worth it? Producers: Charlie Mintz, Xandra Clark, Will Rogers Host: Charlie Mintz Featuring: Professor John Krumboltz, Pankaj Tandon, Galen Menzel More info at:http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/215-episode-313-trial-and-error.html

Have you ever kept pursuing an idea even when everyone else told you it was wrong? So have most of us. There's no doubt about it, as a species, we've got a lot of conviction. But conviction can also lead to years spent howling on a cliff covered in rattlesnakes in the middle of a swamp, searching for Bigfoot. It can lead you to ride a motorcycle into the dangerous, illegal gold mining camps of Peru. It can make you stay in a relationship that doesn't make you happy. And finally, it can make you vote for one of the most absurd, offensive, and hilarious mascots to almost ever exist: the Stanford Robberbarons. On this week's episode, stories about barking up the wrong tree. Producers: Rachel Hamburg, Jane Reynolds, Xandra Clark Host: Xandra Clark Featuring: Mike Greene, Katy Ashe, Christina Ho, Yaa Gyasi, Jerry Lee, Glen Davis, Lee Rosenbaum, Vlae Kershner, Bob Ottilie, Chris Gray More info at:http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/217-episode-312-barking-up-the-wrong-tree.html

Unless you're a hermit living under a rock, you almost certainly spend your days passing in and out of spaces crafted for human use. You leave a bedroom designed for sleeping and go to a bathroom designed for washing and... you know. You enter an office designed for working or a store designed for buying. It's easy to forget just how much the space we're in shapes us. So this week's show is a cold-water, slap on the face, static-electric jolt reminder of just how powerfully spaces can affect the way we think and act. We have stories about paranoia in an outhouse, ghosts in an abandoned building, conformity at the mall, creativity in the classroom, memories in an apartment, and the space that separates us from everyone else, until it doesn't. Producers: Rachel Hamburg, Charlie Mintz Host: Rachel Hamburg Featuring: Alexis Petty, Larry Leifer, Kai Carlson-Wee, Chelsey Little, Aaron Thayer More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/213-episode-311-space-craft.html

The human voice was once considered sacred. Priests and shamans would speak into ceremonial vessels made to preserve its magic. But now every Tom, Dick and Sally vibrates air like they're scratching their elbow. In this show, we try to make the voice weird again. We hear how one voice transforms its owner when he starts speaking a new language. We also hear about a parakeet who speaks like a deceased grandmother, a young man who makes a sound that baffles his neighbors, and the future of synthesized speech. Plus a story about lipreading that's guaranteed to make you pay a lot more attention, from here on out, to mouths. Producer: Charlie Mintz, Will Rogers, Rachel Hamburg Host: Charlie Mintz Featuring: Claire Woodard, Rob Ryan, Rachel Kolb, Bronwyn Reed, Clifford Nass More info at: http://web.stanford.edu/group/storytelling/cgi-bin/joomla/index.php/shows/season3/209-episode-310-the-human-voice.html

Crises can take many shapes, from earthquakes, to chest pain… to a strange absence of strawberry blonde creatures in the forests of the Dominican Republic. In this show, four very different crises appear at four very different scales, affecting a person, a species, a city, and a human body. In each story, there is no emergency procedure, no obvious way out, and one person must make a choice: what are they going to save, and what are they going to sacrifice? Host: Rosie la Puma Producers: Rachel Hamburg and Will Rogers Featuring: Meg Smaker, César Avril, Nicolás Corona, Simon Winchester, Julian Lozos

We can't live without stories. So today on State of the Human, we're investigating what stories do to us and for us. When are we in control of our story? When does our story control us? We explore these questions with four stories. First, a woman is asked to come up with a story that will create life. Then, Buffalo Bill creates another kind of story: the American cowboy. Next, a cancer patient finds a new story. After this, children go beyond telling stories, and become them. Finally, two children look into strangers' houses and see stories. Hosts/Producers: Christy Hartman, Charlie Mintz Featuring:Nina Foushee, Richard White, Jess Peterson, Terri Wingham, Beth Wise, Jackson Roach, Tom Kealey

This week on State of the Human, we're hearing stories about people whose vision changed, first throwing them in the dark, then revealing something new. When the lights go out, at first we can’t see anything, but eventually our eyes adjust. We slowly begin to see again, but the world looks a little bit different than it did before. This week, we’ve got four stories about people who learn to see in a new way after finding themselves in different kinds of darkness. A young kid has a superpower to see things no one else can see, but then he loses that ability. A mythologist embarks on a retreat in darkness on a mountain in Wales. An art student learns to see the human body in a new way. And an Oxford University student finds himself, unexpectedly, in darkness. Host: Xandra Clark - Producers: Xandra Clark and Sophia Paliza, with help from Rachel Hamburg, Darlene Franklin, Lemiece Zarka, John Hollywood, Natacha Ruck, Christy Hartman, Charlie Mintz, Victoria Hurst, Josh Hoyt, Heidi Thorsen, Nina Foushee, and Jonah Willihnganz.