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In the novel ‘Black Bag,’ a classroom experiment invites questions about masculinity
Posted
March 25, 2026
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9:22Now PlayingThe narrator in Black Bag is an unnamed and mostly unemployed actor until a professor offers him the starring role in an experiment. The narrator is asked to zip himself in a black bag and sit in the back of a lecture theater. Luke Kennard’s new novel is based on an experiment from 1967, in which a professor set out to explore “the mere-exposure effect.” In today’s episode, Kennard talks with NPR’s Scott Simon about why the protagonist takes up this non-role – and what the experiment reveals about masculinity.
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