Retro Reading: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test/HNRS 301VH
Tuesdays, 11 A.M. -12:15 P.M. Spring 2024

No application is required for this course.

Note: This is a one-credit course. Only register for one hour of course credit.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, published a year after the Summer of Love, is a neon-splattered head trip into the minds of LSD evangelist Ken Kesey and his cultish band of Merry Pranksters. The 1968 non-fiction book by Wolfe, who pioneered a writing style rooted in psychological and pop-culture reportage, is the seminal document of the acid culture that percolated from San Francisco to trigger widespread moral panic that turned Kesey, the respected author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, into a fugitive. 

About Bret Schulte

Bret Schulte is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Arkansas and a freelance journalist.

He has worked as a reporter and associate editor at U.S. News & World Report, 2004 – 2008, covering a number of Washington policy battles and political races, including the 2004 presidential campaign.

He freelances for The New York Times and has also written for Slate, Columbia Journalism Review, American Journalism Review, Nieman Reports, The Boston Globe, Fast Company, and National Geographic News. Schulte's work has won four first-place Green Eyeshade Awards, which recognizes the best in Southern journalism; an SPJ Diamond Award for coverage of attacks on Arkansas environmentalists; and a finalist for the national Mirror Award for analysis of media coverage of the 2011 Joplin tornado.