State of the Human
by Stanford Storytelling Project
State of the Human, a podcast of the Stanford Storytelling Project, shares stories that deepen our understanding of single, common human experiences—belonging, giving, lying, forgiveness—all drawn from the experiences and research of the Stanford community.
Episodes
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Untethered: Why We Run
In this episode, Emerson explores why people put themselves through the physically demanding experience of a run. Is it the flow state in running, the desire to feel untethered, or is it something else entirely? Produced by Emerson Prentice
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Untethered: When the Lights Turn Green
Matthew Mettias reads his piece “When the Light Turns Green”, about finding new people to call home. Following his reading, is an interview about how the piece came to be, and a near death experience. Producers: Alex Strong Music by Blue Dot Sessions: Beyond the Cranberry House -...
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Play: Pioneer
On a school trip re-enacting the past, Coco tries to find themselves in the magic beyond who they are supposed to be. In this episode, Author Lydia Conklin reads "Pioneer" a short story from Rainbow Rainbow, their collection of stories about queer, gender-nonconforming, and trans characters....
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Play: Missing Pieces
After an accident left Becca with a skull fracture and concussion, she turned to an unlikely form of play to pick up the pieces. Interview with: Becca Taylor Producers: Arun Chhetri, Nardos Demilew, Gracielly Abreu, and Carolyn Stein Narration: Nardos Demilew
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Play: Adesuwa's Day Off
After years of discipline and structure, Adesuwa takes a day off from productivity to remember how to have fun. Producer: Adesuwa Agbonile Host: Jacob Matlof
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Invisibility, Story 6: The Cancer Fighter's Other Side
As a pediatric neuro-oncologist, Dr. Paul Fisher works with children fighting brain cancer. In this episode, he shares how invisible skills like empathy and human connection are central to his medical practice. Producer: Alex Strong
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Invisibility, Story 5: Hillbilly Highway
Viva Donohoe always saw her grandmother as the archetype of a sophisticated woman, modeled in the spirit of iconic country singer Patsy Cline. But an investigation into Cline’s life leads Viva to discover hidden truths about her grandmother and the woman she modeled herself after. Story By: Viva...
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Invisibility, Story 4: Willies on West 79th
In today’s episode, Sarah Lewis reads “Willies on West 79th,” a strangely moving tale about love, body dysmorphia, and why a rat ballet company might be the most honest place in New York. Producers Arun Chhetri Sarah Lewis Alex Strong Story by: Sarah Lewis Music by: Blue Dot Sessions
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Invisibility, Story 3: Mousetraps
In today’s episode, Wallace Stegner Fellow Zach Williams reads his surreal story “Mousetraps,” where a simple errand spirals into a disorienting interrogation of masculinity, guilt, and moral performance. Producers Arun Chhetri Zach Williams Isabelle Edgar Story by: Zach Williams Music by: Blue…
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BONUS: Story Craft Conversation with Langston Buddenhagen on New Flowers
As an added bonus to our Invisibility series, we’re including conversations with the creators who made them to give you a behind-the-scenes look at the craft of audio storytelling. In this episode, Alex Strong talks with Langston Buddenhagen, the creator of New Flowers, the first story in our...
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Invisibility, Story 2, New Flowers
Langston Buddenhagen takes us to Ethiopia's capital city of Addis Ababa in order to explore how neighborhoods change and what that change means. In the process, Langston explores how his mixed racial identity dovetails into these same issues, and how is own hometown - Oakland, California - is...
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Invisibility, Story 1: Emotional Prosody
We all know what it's like to sense something unspoken in a conversation—the hesitation, the sharpness, the softness. It's not the words, but how they're said. This episode, we explore the invisible language of emotional prosody—the tone, rhythm, and subtle cues in our voices that reveal how we...
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BONUS: Story Craft Conversation with Alex Strong on A Foot in Both Worlds
Alana Esposito and Alex Strong to discuss the process behind how A Foot in Both Worlds came to be. Producers: Alana Esposito, Alex Strong
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Breaking the Rules, Story 3: A Foot in Both Worlds (BLEEPED Version)
Paul Calvo has always been ambitious, but he hasn't always been on the right side of the tracks. This is his story. Producer: Alex Strong. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Sounds by Free Sounds.
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Breaking the Rules, Story 3: A Foot in Both Worlds (UNBLEEPED Version)
Paul Calvo has always been ambitious, but he hasn't always been on the right side of the tracks. This is his story. Producer: Alex Strong. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Sounds by Free Sounds.
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Breaking the Rules, Story 2: Scaling Stanford
A group of Stanford alumni recall their time in undergrad climbing buildings on campus – and the way it permanently altered their lives. Producer: Alana Esposito Music from Blue Dot Sessions
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Breaking the Rules, Story 1: Statute of Limitations
When a group of students stumbles upon a mysterious plaque hidden beneath an oak tree, a late-night discovery turns into a real-time detective story. Their search for answers uncovers a decades-old secret, and a story that’s both forgotten and unforgettable. Producers Arun Chhetri: Host…
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Nakedness, story 4: Naked Retreat
What would you do for the sake of a story? In this live story, recorded at the 2024 Senior Story Slam, Alina Wilson shares the story that spawned this series on Nakedness for State of the Human.
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Nakedness, Story 3: Okay With the Gay
Growing up with Indian immigrant parents in a Wyoming college town, Aru was used to the tension of what her parents expected her to be and the person she was actually becoming. In this story, recorded at First Person Story in April of 2024, Aru takes the risk of emotional nakedness with her...
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Nakedness, story 2: Stripping Down
Being naked–or seeing others naked–can evoke a firestorm of emotions . . . everything from freedom to vulnerability to sensuality to shame. In three stories pulled from the Storytelling Project archives (created in 2012) we explore the glory and grit of stripping down.
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Nakedness, story 1: Exposure Therapy
Destiny Cunningham learned shame early. The comments that teachers, church leaders, and other kids made about her body led her to wear clothes like armor, hiding herself from others so she wouldn't be noticed. Years later, Destiny and her friends decide to visit a nudist retreat in the hopes that...
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Reclaiming, story 8: Back to the Garden
“Back to the Garden” tells the story of an organic farming couple, Jose and Rich, who are committed to sustaining the environment . . . and who don't believe in climate change. This episode explores how that dissonance might be possible, the power of language, and whether or not the term "climate...
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Reclaiming, story 7: Orca Boy
Max Du is so obsessed with whales that his childhood friends call him Orca Boy. But when a SeaWorld trainer named Dawn is killed by an orca and there's public backlash against SeaWorld, his love for whales turns to shame. Years later he meets a whale trainer named Lyndsey, who was Dawn’s best...
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Reclaiming, story 6: Friends in Liminal Spaces
In this story about connection outside the bounds of physical space, time, and life experience, an unlikely friendship buds during uncertain times. Producer: Anastasia Sotiropoulos Featuring: Adamu Chan, Michelle Chang, and Anastasia Sotiropoulos Referenced research: “State can be held liable for...
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Reclaiming, story 5: Welcome to Paradise
Carolyn Stein grew up with music like Avril Lavigne and The Marianas Trench – classic, trashy pop punk. But she never considered herself much of a punk rocker, until she took a little trip to the East Bay to a tiny venue called 924 Gilman Street. But soon after Carolyn discovers this venue, she...
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Reclaiming, story 4: Tattoos and Taboos
Whether you have a tattoo or not, we are all familiar with the stigmas that are commonly held against tattoos. Where does this aversion come from? What do these taboos say about history? What do they say about us? In this story, Keoni Rodriguez shares how his tattoos helped him reclaim his...
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BONUS: Story Craft Conversation with Kaitlyn Auth and Charlie Darracott on Keep Stanford Wrestling
Alina Wilson and Alex Strong sit down with Kaitlyn Auth and Charlie Darracott for a story craft conversation about the story behind creating Keep Stanford Wrestling.
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Reclaiming, story 3: Keep Stanford Wrestling
In the spring of 2020, Stanford University made the decision to cut 11 of their varsity teams due to financial issues and lack of success. This episode follows the men’s wrestling team and their coaches in the months following the decision to cut their team as they navigate the challenges of...
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BONUS: Story Craft Conversation with Aru Nair on Journey Through Generations
As an added bonus to our Reclaiming series, we’re including conversations with the creators who made them to give you a behind-the-scenes look at the craft of audio storytelling. In this episode, Alex Strong talks with Aru Nair, the creator of Journey Through Generations, the second story in our...
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Reclaiming, story 2: Journey Through Generations
In this episode, the 2nd in our Reclaiming What's Been Lost series, Aru Nair goes on a journey to India to understand how oral tradition preserves cultures. But when a surprise trip to her father's home town shows her a side if him she's never seen, she emerges with a new understanding of how the...
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Reclaiming, story 1: Home is Little Tokyo
Little Tokyo is a small neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles. Since 1905, it has been home to generations of Japanese Americans. Today, gentrification is threatening to destroy everything these families have built. This episode tells the story of one community's struggle for survival and the ways...
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Gathering (full episode)
What do we gain from gathering? In this episode, we’re thinking about how coming together can change us. We’ll hear about a citizen-led clean-up movement in India, a Bay Area artist who forms an unlikely friendship with a church in Colorado, and a student who experiences the power of connection…
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Materializing (full episode)
What ideas exist behind material objects? In this episode, we’re going to look at stuff—things we can see or hear or touch—to try to understand the intangible, like memory, history, and bias. Producers: Adesuwa Agbonile, Jett Hayward, Yue Li, Jenny March, Isabella Tilley, Melina Walling, Val Gamao
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Dying (full episode)
In this episode, we’re going to think about death. All things must come to an end, but that does not mean death is all ending. We ask -- what can death teach us about life? Featuring special reflections on death at the beginning and end of the show by Lazarre and Simone Elias, aged 6 and 9....
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Mythologizing (full episode)
In this episode, we search for myths in the modern world. We ask-- where are monsters hiding, and who created them? What do the myths we circulate say about ourselves? Producers: Claudia Heymach, Morgan Canaan, Sophie McNulty, Ben Schwartz, Jett Hayward, Michaela Elias, Christy Hartman, Jake…
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Broadcasting (full episode)
Description: In this episode we ride the radio waves. We listen closely, digging deep in the static to hear stories of people following radio waves, of bouncing radio waves, but mainly stories of people listening to the voices. Producers: Cathy Wong ,Cameron Tenner, Victoria Yuan, Yue Li, Neel...
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Naming (full episode)
We name people, places, and things out of necessity, but the labels we choose take on the weight of history, culture, and identity. In this episode, we talk about the names we use, and why they matter.
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Survival (full episode)
Sometimes you have to keep your head down to stay alive. This is a show about playing the cello in the darkest hour, and returning to the site of the fire, and keeping your head down to stay alive. This is a show about what happens when the sun goes down, and when you get lost in the mall, and…
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Speculation (full episode)
What can we know about the future? And where do we look? We plan ahead by speculating. We can’t imagine not imagining the next hour, the next day, the next email. In this show we look at the nature of guessing, of predicting, and what that can tell us about the future. And the past. Host: Yue Li...
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Caretaking (full episode)
How do we take care of the past after it turns to ash? We visit with families digging through the rubble of their homes in Sonoma after the fires as they sift for memories. This episode asks how we care for people, and what to do if there's no obvious path to healing. Along the way, we meet a...
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Immigrating: Crossings (full episode, part 1 of theme)
We hear a lot about immigrants. In this episode, we hear from immigrants – not as statistics, but as individual human beings crossing borders. Oscar gets deported and tries to return home. Maddie comes to terms with her family relationships. And Nisrin enters the U.S. from Sudan after the first...
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Immigrating: Conversations (full episode, part 2 of theme)
Immigrating is a conversation that happens across borders, generations, and versions of oneself. Grace and Justin talk across political differences. Unknown workers who forged the Transcontinental Railroad receive a new voice. Solmaz writes poetry to orient herself in the world. And Frankie and...
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Crashing (full episode)
Sometimes, marching steadily through the steps of life—we crash right into something entirely unexpected. In one instant, the entire world changes, without even a word of warning. When a crash comes, that collision can destroy everything. But it can wake us up to what we truly need; we must…
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Navigating (full episode)
Ants navigate to and from food using pheromone trails; the stronger the pheromone trail, the more ants following it, like some kind of highway map. Humans use similar mapping strategies as we navigate through life, but how do we know that the paths we’re on will lead us to where we want to be?...
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Breathing (full episode)
Breath and spirit have been closely related in human thought—for millennia. In a lot of human languages, we use the same word to mean both things. Yet it’s easy to take breathing for granted, in spite of the fact it is maybe the most common human experience. In this episode, we’re going to think...
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Inheritance (full episode)
In this episode, we explore inheritances’ many forms and unexpected outcomes. “You’ll hear the forgotten tales of hand-me down clothing, stories of family exploits that keep ancestors alive, how your genetic inheritance can define you...for better and for worse, and how even our values can get...
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Burying (full episode)
As a society, we still maintain many ancient traditions and practices relating to the care of our dead. We invest tremendous resources and energy in maintaining cemeteries and sacred ground for the bodies of our beloved. In the face of death, we dig and scrape through dirt, mixing our emotions in...
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Imagining (full episode)
The mind’s ability to envision more than what is physically present in the world is an astounding fact of life. We’re always imagining, thinking, and living in our heads. Our thoughts and our imaginations shape how we see the world, they shape our words and our actions. This is nothing new. We’ve...
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Teaching (full episode)
Teaching seems pretty straightforward: one person knows something better than someone else and teaches it to them. But there’s something important that happens to the teacher themselves. In this episode, a 3-year-old teaches his parents what he’s made of, a student defies expectations and becomes…
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Losing (full episode)
When you lose something, there’s an emptiness, a hole, where that something used to be. And you have to figure out a way to keep living your life with that loss. Even though the emptiness will always be there, what can be gained from trying to fill it? What can be gained from losing? This episode...
About this show
State of the Human, a podcast of the Stanford Storytelling Project, shares stories that deepen our understanding of single, common human experiences—belonging, giving, lying, forgiveness—all drawn from the experiences and research of the Stanford community.
Hosted by
Stanford Storytelling Project