Common Reading 2005-2006
Art Spiegelman's Maus
Discussion Guide for Faculty-led Student Groups at the Opening Sessions for Students

Thank you so much for volunteering to meet with a group of new students to welcome them into the intellectual life of the college. Students consistently evaluate the faculty-led discussions as one of their favorite portions of the Opening Sessions program. We appreciate your energy and enthusiasm!

Day’s Libretto: For your session, you will have one hour, from 11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Prior to your session, students will attend a plenary from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in the Mainstage Theater. There, we will begin a discussion of the play by framing the Common Reading and the major themes and issues in Maus. We will focus specifically on the idea of “rescue and recovery.” Students will see a dramatization of several scenes from Maus produced by Professor Will Koolsbergen. Then, we will ask students to identify a significant historical moment that they might choose to record for history. The morning plenary will close with a brief opportunity for student volunteers to share their answers with the large group. If you are available to join us, we would love to have you attend the Plenary Session prior to your faculty-led discussion session.

Students will arrive at your session by 11:15 a.m. After your session, students will proceed to one of three special orientations for our new First Year Academies beginning at 12:45 p.m. As you know, we are asking for your assistance in moving students to their Academy Orientation Room. These rooms are outlined in the letter you received from Dean Arcario. Please let us know if you need additional information. The day’s program ends at 1:45 p.m. with optional tours of the college. Students who are interested can also attend Leadership and Diversity programs beginning at 1:45 p.m. Please feel free to join us for any of these other activities during the day.

Organizing Your Session: What makes the faculty-led discussion sessions such a rich experience for students are your creativity and the variety of approaches to leading discussion on the common reading. This year is no exception. What follows is a brief list of ideas for leading discussion on the book. Feel free to devise your own session plans. These suggestions simply serve as a possible springboard for your own ideas; please feel free to borrow liberally or to go in another direction entirely. You may want to begin your session by determining how many students have read the book; usually, many students have read the Common Reading in its entirety. Sometimes, groups of students receive the book at Opening Sessions, so you should prepare for a mixed group. However, since this year’s Common Reading is a graphic novel, you should have success with encouraging both students who have and have not read the book to talk about the themes and ideas in the text.

General Themes in Maus: This year’s common reading focuses on many different issues such as The Holocaust, Genocide, Antisemitism, Racism, Rescue and Recovery, World War II, Witness to War, Political Literature, and Crimes Against Humanity. As a college community, we will focus on the umbrella theme of Rescue and Recovery in our co-curricular events for 2005-2006. Additionally, you may choose to address themes like Autobiography or Graphic Novels, since the form of Maus was so original when it was first published in 1973.

About the Author: (From Pantheon Graphic Novel’s Website):

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for his masterful Holocaust narrative Maus, which was followed by Maus II, he is one of the world's best-known graphic artists. "It would be almost impossible to overstate the influence of Maus among other artists" (The New York Times Magazine).

Born in Stockholm in 1948, Spiegelman rejected his parents' aspirations for him to become a dentist, and began to study cartooning in high school and drawing professionally at age 16. He went on to study art and philosophy at Harpur College before joining the underground comics movement. As creative consultant for Topps Candy from 1965-1987, Spiegelman designed Wacky Packages, Garbage Pail Kids and other novelty items, and taught history and aesthetics of comics at the School for Visual Arts in New York from 1979-1986. In 1980, Spiegelman founded RAW, the acclaimed avant-garde comics magazine, with his wife, Francoise Mouly. His work has since been published in many periodicals, including The New Yorker, where he was a staff artist and writer from 1993-2003. He has since published a children’s book entitled Open Me... I'm A Dog, as well as the illustration accompaniment to the 1928 book The Wild Party, by Joseph Moncure March.

Approaches to Discussing Maus:

1. Associative Exercises (helpful for groups who haven’t read the entire book):

• Drawing on students’ historical knowledge: Ask students what they know about the Holocaust. Then have them read pages 157-159. Spiegelman writes, “We knew the stories—that they will gas us and throw us in the ovens. This was 1944...We knew everything. And here we were.” Since Maus is, in many ways, a collaborative autobiography, in which Vladek’s story is told by Spiegelman, we know that Vladek lived. Ask students to reflect on the importance of surviving and telling one’s story. How do survivors help us to understand and contextualize history in a more meaningful way?
• Intolerance/Prejudice discussion: Hang blank banner paper around the room. Provide markers and pens. Invite students to record all of the significant historical moments of intolerance and prejudice that they remember (from history or from their own lives). Then, have students read page 33. Using their understanding of the history of intolerance and prejudice, ask them to connect what they know to the panel “This town is Jew Free.”
• Universal Human Rights Discussion: You might ask students to think about Genocide, Intolerance, and Ethnic Cleansing in the context of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Provide students with a copy of the declaration and, as a group, use it to talk about prejudice. You might also ask students to reflect on recent episodes of ethnic cleansing.

2. Textual Analysis (useful with groups who have read the book in its entirety):
**Please note, if you would like to focus on a particular chapter of the book, Evelyn Burg and Patti Juza’s website for Maus has discussion questions for each chapter of the book.

• Spiegelman’s book is subtitled “My Father Bleeds History.” What is the significance of the title? How does it help you to think about the whole book?
• What are the most important themes in the book (you may want to list these on the board)?
• What is the importance of Spiegelman documenting his own relationship with his father alongside the story of his father’s life during the Holocaust?
• What is the significance of “survival” in this book?
• In what ways does this book help us to understand the history of World War II more fully? Is Vladek a reliable narrator?
• What are the significant historical events portrayed in the novel? (For this question, you might create a timeline on the board to visually illustrate the events in the novel).
• Why does Spiegelman choose to represent this history using mice and cats? Is this visual representation effective?
• Maus essentially tells two stories: the story of Vladek’s escape from the Holocaust and the relationship of father and son. How are these two stories related? What do they suggest about the nature of a “survivor”? In the end, whose story is this?
• Maus is a Pulitzer Prize winning book. How do the illustrations for this book impact the story it tells?

3. Thematic Approaches to Discussing Maus:

The Literature of War/Witnessing Atrocities

In the landmark book Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness, poet Carolyn Forché’s advances a theory of the “poetry of witness,” which defines the word “political” in the context of a social sphere. The poetry of witness gives voice to the particular cultural and historical moment. Forché maintains that “The poetry of witness reclaims the social from the political and in so doing defends the individual against illegitimate forms of coercion.”

• What is being witnessed in Maus?
• What is the importance of the witness?
• Why should books like Maus be written?
• Why should books like Maus be studied?
• Are there events today that you believe should be witnessed?

Persecution

• Much of Maus focuses on the persecution of Jewish people. Often, when others are persecuted, there are people who see this persecution and either act to aid those being persecuted or ignore what is going on around them. Why might people choose to act or to be silent? What is at stake when someone speaks out against a dominant cultural movement?
  

Helpful Resources:

• Patti Juza, Evelyn Burg, and Ali Abdullah created this year’s Common Reading website
• Patricia Juza and Evelyn Burg will lead a session on teaching Maus during Faculty Opening Sessions on 1 September 2005.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (See especially the Holocaust Encyclopedia)
• A Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust (See especially the Resource Section with links to primary documents)
• PBS’ Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State Resource Site
• Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum
• Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights
• Anne Frank Museum
• Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights
• War Crimes in the 20th Century, an NPR Special Series

In Print, See Also:

• Doherty, Thomas. "Art Spiegelman's Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust." American Literature. 68.1 (March 1996):69-85.
• Iadonisi, R. "Bleeding History and Owning His (Father's) Story—Maus and Collaborative Autobiography" CEA Critic. 57.1 (1994): 41-56.
• Leventhal, Robert S. “Trauma, Working-Through, and the Problem of Historical Understanding.”
• Loewenstein, Andrea Freud. "Confronting Stereotypes: Maus in Crown Heights." College English. 60.4 (April, 1998):396-421.
• Young J.E. "The Holocaust as Vicarious Past: Art Spiegelman's Maus and the Afterimages of History." Critical Inquiry. 24.3 (1998): 666-699.

Please feel free to be in touch with any questions or concerns. I will be happy to provide any support you need in preparing your session. I can be reached by e-mail at lclark@lagcc.cuny.edu or by phone at 718.482.5665. As always, thanks for your commitment to our first year students.

Best,
J. Elizabeth Clark

**This Discussion Guide for Student Openings Sessions was created by J. Elizabeth Clark, Evelyn Burg, Patti Juza, and Marisa Klages. Special thanks to Marian Arkin for additional resources.

J. Elizabeth Clark, Ph.D. (lclark@lagcc.cuny.edu)
Professor of English
Office: E-103 H in The Department of English
Phone:718.482.5665
Summer 2009 Office Hours

Site Credits: This site was last updated on 13 May 2009. Site designed and maintained by J. Elizabeth Clark. Technical Assistance provided by Delwar Sayeed and Priscilla Stadler.