Professor offering a free Maus class to Tennessee students

[RandySF]

After a Tennessee school board decided to ban Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer prize-winning graphic novel Maus: A Survivor's Tale — a historical account of Holocaust survivors based on Spiegelman's parents — a college professor channeled his anger by creating a free online course for McMinn County's 8th–12th grade students.

The course will "not be public, but open only to McMinn County, TN, students who apply," Professor Scott Denham of Davidson College says on his Maus class website. "I have taught Spiegelman's books many times in my courses on the Holocaust over many years."

Denham, a Harvard graduate who teaches German studies at Davidson in North Carolina, says the course is a work in progress, and students of McMinn County can register here.



https://boingboing.net/2022/01/28/professor-so-angry-over-spiegelman-book-ban-he-is-offering-free-online-maus-class-for-tennessee-students.html

[Aristus]

1. Education will find a way.

I'm guessing some students will register just for the thrill of covert rebellion. And if they learn something important in the process? Bonus!

[AZSkiffyGeek]

2. I think this is awesome

But are kids really going to go out of their way to read a banned book about the Holocaust? I hope some do, but it's not like they're seeking out copies of Anais Nin, or Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty erotica. That's what we were looking for when I was in high school.

[Aristus]

3. Funny story about the Anne Rice Sleeping Beauty books.

I worked in a bookstore back in the mid-90's, and an old lady came in one day brandishing an audio book of the first of the erotic Sleeping Beauty novels. She was enraged and demanded her money back because she had bought the recording not knowing it was going to be "filthy".

I laughed silently and gave her her refund.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

4. I find it funny that those books were off limits

But every 8th grade girl in school was reading Flowers in the Attic.

[Farmer-Rick]

8. The best way to get kids, and most Americans, to read something

Is to ban it.

Look at how popular all those banned books have become, such as: Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, 1984, Of Mice and Men, Brave New World, Animal Farm, The Sun also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, Gone With the Wind,......so many books banned by ignorant people.

I bet his class fills up rapidly.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

5. My son read this book when he was in middle school

This book is a good teaching aid for explaining the holocaust

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

6. Bravo!

[twodogsbarking]

7. Make intelligence great again.

[RobertDevereaux]

9. Some rich dude . . .

Some rich dude needs to buy dozens of old Good Humor trucks, jingle them bells, and give out a free copy of MAUS to any kid that wants one.