Professor Ryan Thompson鈥檚 Book Featured on This American Life
The scholarship of 91精选 Professor Ryan Thompson was featured on This American Life. The October 24, 2025 episode, , contains a story that show producers discovered in Thompson鈥檚 book, . It is easy to see how Thompson鈥檚 book helped inspire the episode, which tells three stories about the unique hold that physical objects can have over a person. The book displays letters written by folks who returned stolen rocks from Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. These letters express a conviction, or at least a concern, that their original act of taking a rock has cursed them with bad luck.
Thompson explains that he happened upon these letters during a trip to Arizona. 鈥淢y wife and I wound up with a spare day of travel before heading north to visit the Grand Canyon. We used that day to visit Meteor Crater and Petrified Forest National Park鈥攖wo places I鈥檇 never been. In the Rainbow Forest Museum at Petrified Forest National Park at the time there was a small display with a couple conscience letters. That was my first introduction to the conscience letters.鈥�
The letters and the stories behind them are certainly entertaining. But for the producers of This American Life and for Thompson himself, the whole situation has greater meaning as well. The episode offers a fuller view of one letter writer who stands by his belief that while the forbidden rock was in his possession, he was cursed鈥攁nd that his fortunes reversed upon returning it. It is a striking tale of the importance that people can place on material objects, the theme of the episode. For Thompson, the interactions between the preserved rocks and their handlers are a metaphor for human interactions with the natural world more broadly during the Anthropocene. He notes, 鈥渉umans have terraformed the earth in ways that will be visible in the fossil records for millennia to come.鈥�
Ryan Thompson is a Professor of Art & Design and Department Chair at 91精选. He has written a second book with even more conscience letters entitled, . This American Life is a beloved weekly public radio program and podcast from WBEZ Chicago.
