Promises can be made about almost anything. From promising to be a knight of God, to promising to talk about sex... to promising to stay together until death do us part. In this show, eight different promises are made. Some are kept, many are broken. But even when broken, these promises changed something. Because even a failed promise has the power to change the world.

Host: Nina Foushee

Producers: Nina Foushee, Hadley Reid, Christy Hartman

Featuring: Nina Foushee, Will Hamilton, Liz Matus, Professor Jorah Dannenberg, Hadley Reid, Don Reid, Holly Russell, and Matt Rothe

Release Date: 16 July 2014

Music used during transitions: Chris Zabriskie, Kevin MacLeod, A Smile for Timbuctu, The Kyoto Connection

image via flickr

Intro Story: Nina, from Tucson

Nina tells the story of a promise she made to remember where she comes from, Tucson Arizona.

Producers: Nina Foushee and Christy Hartman

Featuring: Nina Foushee

Music: Chris Zabriskie

Image courtesy of Nina Foushee

Story 1: Knight of God

At the age of 13, Stanford Junior Will Hamilton made a promise to Pir Vilayat Khan. He’s the former spiritual leader of Sufism.

Producer: Nina Foushee

Featuring: Will Hamilton

Music: Arizono Kazuhiro, The Chicago Modern Orchestra Project, Marty Erlich, and Kei Engel

Image via wikipedia

Story 2: A Cold Walk

Stanford Senior, Liz Matus makes a promise to herself after a cold winter walk across her hometown of Cedar Rapids.

Recorded at Activist Story Night at the Haas Center for Public Service in March, 2014

Featuring: Liz Matus

Image courtesy of Liz Matus

Story 3: Ella

Stanford Philosophy Professor Jorah Dannanburg reveals a promise he made to care for an enormous dog named Ella-- A mastiff who likes to eat shoes and couches.

Producer: Nina Foushee

Featuring: Jorah Dannenberg

Music: Podington Bear

Story 4: 'Til Death

Hadley Reid tells us about a time when wedding vows were only the beginning of another promise.

Producer: Hadley Reid

Featuring: Don Reid PhD 1981 and Holly Russell 1978

Music: Chris Zabriskie, Edoardo Romani Capelo

Image courtesy of Holly Russell

Story 5: How the Tractor Ruined Farming

Matt Rothe, a lecturer at Stanford, shares two broken promises. One’s an unspoken societal promise. The other’s the promise of technology, specifically, the tractor.

Producer: Erik Olesund, MSc 2014

Featuring: Matt Rothe, MBA 2007, Lecturer at the School of Earth Sciences and at the d.school (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design)

Music: Antony Raijekov, Blear Moon, Chris Zabriskie, Mountain Range), Jason Shaw, Arizono Kazuhiro

Image courtesy of Matt Rothe