This week we are further diving into the recent banning of Art Spiegelman’s Maus by a school board in TN by speaking with comics scholar Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern University and associate editor of MetaMaus. She discusses the history of the original publication of Maus and Spiegelman’s roots in the Underground Comics movement, which led to the elevation of the graphic novel. Then we move on to looking at why the book has been banned by the McMinn County, TN education board and situating those reasons within a larger context, including issues of otherizing Jewish histories and complicated parent/child relationships. She also uses examples from Maus to explain the power of comics as a teaching tool, and a way of processing trauma.
A full transcript of this episode will be available soon!
Here are some of the references from this episode, for those who want to dig a little deeper:
Our previous episode on the broader context of recent comics censorship, with critic Jeet Heer & Jeff Trexler of the CBLDF
Maus
MetaMaus
Original publication of Maus in 1972 Funny Aminals anthology
Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (Justin Green, who passed away just before we released this episode)
History of Raw magazine, Art Spiegelman & Françoise Mouly
Zap Comix, Robert Crumb
McMinn, TN Education board censorship of Maus
Other Holocaust narratives taught in schools (and banned):
Night and Fog (1956 film)
Banning Anne Frank – A Case of Censorship
Spiegelman and Sendak Collab Strip about kids reading Maus
Spiegelman’s Support for Children Comics:
Toon Books Imprint
Little Lit anthology series
Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe
Hillary’s forthcoming book of essays about Maus, Maus Now
Our previous episode with comics theorist Scott McCloud
Hillary’s recommendation: Joe Sacco
Our previous episode with Carol Tyler & Mimi Pond and the emergence of female-centered underground comics
In the Shadow of No Towers (Henry’s own writing on No Towers can be found here)
Reprinting classic comics – Sunday Press Fantagraphics
(NSFW or kids!) Wally Wood’s “Disneyland Memorial Orgy”
Classics Illustrated comics
Share your thoughts via Twitter with Henry, Colin and the How Do You Like It So Far? account! You can also email us at howdoyoulikeitsofarpodcast@gmail.com.
Music:
“In Time” by Dylan Emmett and “Spaceship” by Lesion X.
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In Time (Instrumental) by Dylan Emmet https://soundcloud.com/dylanemmet
Spaceship by Lesion X https://soundcloud.com/lesionxbeats
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/in-time-instrumental
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/lesion-x-spaceship
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/AzYoVrMLa1Q
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