Find Deeper Empathy Through Stories: Maus by Art Spiegelman

Do you feel a story when you read it? What makes it feel real?  In this episode on the groundbreaking graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman, I explore how Spiegelman makes his father's story come to life as more than just a series of events in history.  Vladek Spiegelman, a Holocaust survivor, doesn't recount events; he recounts experiences, and those experiences are what his son Art relays in Maus.The way that Spiegelman centers his father's human experience makes Maus uniquely inviting to its readers despite the horrors it recounts. Its sensitive and sharply detailed account of Vladek's experience as a survivor asks readers to feel what they're reading as well as understand it. It forces us to confront things we often do not and to do so compassionately. It leads us to feel empathy within its first pages and keeps us there until the last frame.

The meditation in this episode is aimed at centering that same essential humanity that Spiegelman distills in Maus. Based on the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness meditation, this episode will invite you to approach your own story and that of those around you, close and distant, with a consciousness of the human-ness at the center of each one.  

What did you think of this episode? Please reach out to [email protected] or DM me on Instagram @readitations and let me know. I love to hear from you.

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Thanks to Josue Mundt for his work on the theme music and sound design in this episode.