September 14, 2007
Jack Kerouac’s novel turned 50 this month and Studio 360 wanted to find out whether the book still speaks to readers. We turned to Hillary Frank and Jonathan Menjivar, newly married radio producers, to go exploring. Turned out Hillary had never read it -- so Jonathan gave her the underlined, scribbled-in copy he got when he was 17. We provoked a little marital tension in the process.
Tania Ketenjian recently crossed the country in an old Subaru talking to strangers. She started all of her conversations by asking them what made them happy. She also talked to scholars studying the deceptively simple idea of happiness (including Paul Ekman of UC San Francisco, Daniel Gilbert from Harvard, and Tim Wilson from the University of Virginia). Tania shares her findings.
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and
DK Eyewitness Travel. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
