In your analysis of Maus, you will cite a relevant authoritative secondary source: a critical essay, book review, or interview published in an academic journal or a well-regarded news publication. The handout on secondary sources that I distributed in class includes passages from some studies of Maus. That handout can be downloaded below, and the excerpts also appear in a later section of this post.
Why Cite an Authoritative Secondary Source?
Quoting or paraphrasing an authoritative secondary source gives your writing credibility. It indicates to readers that your ideas are trustworthy and valid because your analysis is informed by the work of an expert.
Citing an authoritative secondary source also links your analysis to a study of Maus that preceded yours. Academic writing is knowledge-building. With your analysis, you are adding to the critical conversation about Spiegelman’s memoir.
Ask yourself, what has a scholar or journalist written about Maus, and how do my own ideas about Spiegelman’s memoir fit into the conversation? Your answers to those questions can serve as a starting point for integrating your own take on Maus with the ideas presented in a secondary source.
Locating Authoritative Secondary Sources
The GTCC Libraries website includes a research guide for Maus, which features links to articles, essays, reviews, lectures, and interviews.
You can also locate scholarly, or peer-reviewed, articles on Maus by following these steps on the libraries’ home page:
- Click on advanced search.
- In the first search index box, select subject. In the search term box to the right, type Spiegelman, Art.
- In the second search index box, select subject. In the search term box to the right, type Maus.
- Click search.
- On the next screen, you will see a list of more than two-hundred sources. You can refine your search by choosing one of the limiters in the menu bar on the left. Selecting articles will narrow the list of sources to fewer than ninety; selecting peer-reviewed articles will limit the list to fewer than twenty.
Another Authoritative Secondary Source
If you watched the live stream of Professor Ruth von Bernuth’s lecture on September 28, you are welcome to use that presentation as a secondary source. Here’s how you would integrate one of her points into your analysis:
Ruth von Bernuth, Assistant Professor of Germanic Language at UNC-Chapel Hill, has observed that Jewish persecution in Europe coincided with the medieval pandemic but occurred before the plague as well.
Notice that the signal phrase includes the writer’s first and last name as well as her credentials. The paraphrase does not include a page number because the source is a presentation. The work cited entry, which would appear at the end of the analysis, lists the details of the event:
von Bernuth, Ruth. “Black Death and Jewish Persecution.” Guilford Technical Community College All-College Read Presentation, Microsoft Teams Live Stream, 29 Sept., 2020. Lecture.
Passages from Authoritative Secondary Sources
From Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University:
“[t]he Nazi flag. . . is never shown unobstructedly unfurled in Maus” (42).
From Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York:
“The Success of Maus is due to a double audacity. The first is the choice to represent the Holocaust as a cartoon, the second to cast its star witness as a victimizer in his own world, a petty tyrant at home” (48-49).
From Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University:
“Adam Gopnik has astutely observed that the animal heads attributed to humans in this narrative reflect ‘our sense that this story is too horrible to be presented unmasked’” (109).
From Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University:
The telling of stories is, of course, a primary means of ordering the disorder of experience; it provides a surface sensibleness that may be perceived as meaningful. Artie, however, will never make any sense or meaning of it all, no matter how many times he articulates the horror verbally and graphically; he can only shape an imitation, an illusion of meaning through the telling of the tale. (30-31)
In an MLA-style manuscript, the quotation above is indented one-half inch because it is one of more than four lines. The quotation marks are omitted because the indentation signals to the reader that the lines are taken word-for-word from the source. For more on presenting long quotations in MLA papers, see A Writer’s Reference (376).
From Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern University:
“The most striking instance of representing past and present together in Maus I is the inclusion of the autobiographical comic strip ‘Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History’” (346).
Works Cited
Bosmajian, Hamida. “The Orphaned Voice in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 26-43.
Chute, Hillary. “History and Graphic Representation in Maus.” A Comics Studies Reader, edited by Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, UP of Mississippi, 2009, pp. 340-62.
Miller, Nancy K. “Cartoons of the Self: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Murderer—Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 44-59.
Wilner, Arlene Fish. “‘Happy, Happy Ever After’: Story and History in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 105-21.
Blog Response Assignment for Monday Students
Directions
- Choose one of the article excerpts on your handout from last week—a phrase, a sentence, or two or more sentences—and compose a short piece of writing that presents the passage as you would if you were integrating it into your analysis of Maus. (See the examples below.) Choose a short passage other than the one cited in the examples below. In other words, do not quote or paraphrase Hamida Bosmajian’s observation about the Nazi flag.
- Introduce the source with a signal phrase that includes the author’s first and last name and credentials.
- Include the page number in the parenthetical citation, whether you are quoting or paraphrasing.
- Type your assignment as a reply to this blog post. To do that, scroll down to the bottom of the post, and look for the image of the air mail envelope. If you don’t see it, click on the post’s title, “Citing Secondary Sources,” and scroll down again. Post your comment no later than noon on Friday, October 16.
Note: To avoid the risk of students duplicating their classmates’ replies, I will not make any of the comments visible until after the deadline.
Examples
Integrated Quotation
Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University, has observed that “the Nazi flag. . . is never shown unobstructedly unfurled in Maus” (42).
Integrated Paraphrase
Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University, has observed that the field of the Nazi flag is never seen in its entirety in Maus; it is always obstructed (42).
In class on October 14, the Wednesday students read an excerpt from an interview with Art Spiegelman, conducted by Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern University. Chute, who is one of the scholars included on your handout from last week, is the author of several book-length studies of comics–including Why Comics?: From Underground to Everywhere–and is also associate editor of Art Spiegelman’s MetaMaus.
Postscript
In addition to Hillary Chute’s interview with Art Spiegelman, “Why Maus Remains ‘the Greatest Graphic Novel Ever Written,’ 30 Years Later” is another secondary source that you may cite in your analysis. You may quote or paraphrase the article’s writer, Michael Cavna, or you may quote or paraphrase one of the comic artists he interviewed for the piece. In your signal phrase, include the writer/artist’s first and last name and credentials:
- Washington Post journalist Michael Cavna
- Cartoonist Chris Ware, author of Building Stories
- Comic artist Jeff Smith, creator of the Bone series
- Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese
Sample In-Text Citations
Washington Post journalist Michael Cavna has noted that “amid the massive boom in graphic novels, it can be easy to forget how much of a game-changer Maus was.”
The sample above does not include a parenthetical citation at the end because the source is an unpaginated article on the web.
Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese, credits Art Spiegelman with“set[ting] the standard for the rest of us” (qtd. in Cavna).
The sample above includes a parenthetical citation with the abbreviation “qtd.” because Gene Luen Yang is quoted in the article written by Michael Cavna. It includes brackets because I altered the word “set” to “setting” to keep the sentence grammatical in my context.
For more on brackets and MLA in-text citations, see A Writer’s Reference (376, 384-92).
Jane Lucas 
According to the Nancy K.Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York the success of Maus is because of its audacity, which means the Mous present the two things together, first one is to present the Holocaust as a cartoon, and the other one is to present its star witness as a victimizer in his world and a petty tyrant in his home.(48-49)
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University states that Adam Gopnik has astutely observed that the animal heads attributed to humans in this narrative reflect ‘our sense of this story is too horrible to be presented unmasked’ (109).
Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York, has observed that the book Maus, conducted by Art Spiegelman, adopted not one but two audacity’s in the comic. One of his choices represented the Holocaust as a cartoon; the other uses the star witness as a victimizer in his own world and described as a petty tyrant at home (48-49).
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University, noticed that “Adam Gopnik has astutely observed that the animal heads attributed to humans in this narrative reflect ‘our sense that this story is too horrible to be presented unmasked’” (109).
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University, has observed that Adam Gopnik thought carefully that the narrative is too sensitive to be presented realistically, changing people for animal characters to present the story (109).
Arlene Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at RiderUniversity, observes that animal heads replace those of humans in Maus, creating a sense that the story is too dark to be represented with normal human heads (109).
Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York, has observed that the reason for Maus having so much success is because it is a double audacity, the first being that the holocaust is represented through a cartoon, and the second to cast its main witness who victimizes himself in his own world, manipulating others as a petty tyrant.(48-49)
WORKS CITED
Miller, Nancy K. “Cartoons of the Self: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Murderer—Art
Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s
Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 44-59.
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University: Adam Gopnik observed the animal heads used to depict humans in Maus introduced how horrific the events were to the extent the story could not be left unveiled (109).
Note Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern University, “The most striking instance of representing past an present together in Maus 1 is the inclusion of the autobiographical comic strip from Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History (346). But is everyone willing to agree this is the case?
Assignment:
Integrated quotation:
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University, has observed that “the animal heads attributed to humans in this narrative reflect ‘our sense that this story is too horrible to be presented unmasked” (109)
Integrated paraphrase:
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University, has observed that the heads of the animals reflect that this particular story about the Holocaust is to horrendous that the characters cannot really show their true identity (109).
The Holocaust was a horrible time in history that impacted many people today. The animal heads given in the book Maus have been used to show the significance of the Holocaust and how horrific it really was. This also shows that the characters cannot be shown unmasked and that they need to be covered up.
Works cited:
Wilner, Arlene Fish. “‘Happy, Happy Ever After’ : Story and History in Art Spiegelman’s Maus.” Considering Maus: Approaches to Art Spiegelman’s “Survivor’s Tale” of the Holocaust, edited by Deborah R. Geis, U of Alabama P, 2003, pp. 105-21.
Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern University, notes that the inclusion of the autobiographical comic strip “Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History” in Maus I, makes for the most striking representation of the past and the present being merged in the story (346).
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University, remarks that “Adam Gopnik has astutely observed that the animal heads attributed to humans in this narrative reflect ‘our sense that this story is too horrible to be presented unmasked’” (109).
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University, believes Adam Gopnik’s observation that the animal heads attributed to people in Maus indicate the narrative is too horrible to experience unmasked.
Bryan Talbot, author of ‘Grandville Bête Noire’ (Cape), remarks of Maus, “The cartoon style… [allows] the reader to approach otherwise horrific situations in a direct way” (1).
Bryan Talbot, author of ‘Grandville Bête Noire’ (Cape), believes that Maus uniquely allows readers to approach otherwise horrific situations directly, through use of cartoon style (1).
I hope this is what you were looking for!
“The because heads of the mice are representing the Jew’s. the story is to sensitve to make the Jew’s out as people”(109). From Wilner, Arlnene Fish. “Happy Ever After’: story and History in Art Spiegelmans’s Maus.
keep in mind that Nancy K. miller a outstanding professor of english and comparative lit at the city university of new york said that “the success of maus is due to the ability of this writer to represent the holocaust as a cartoon and cast the characters as their own victimizers. Miller, Nancy k. “cartoons of the self: Portrait of the artist as a young murder – art Spiegelman’s mouse” Considering mouse: Approaches to art Spiegelman’s survivors tale of the holocaust, edited by Deborah or GEIS, university of Alabama P, 2003, PP. 44 – 95.
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University, noticed that “Adam Gopnik has astutely observed that the animal heads attributed to humans in this narrative reflect ‘our sense that this story is too horrible to be presented unmasked’” (109).
Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York, has observed that the success of Maus is due to a double audacity. The first reason is the choice of representation for the Holocaust as a cartoon. The second being the cast, its star witness as a victimizer said himself, a petty tyrant at home.
Hillary Chute, Distinguished professor of English and art+ design at northeastern university, has observed that the comic strip of “Prisoner on the Hell Planet” represented the past and present.(346).
Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University, affirms that storytelling is a meaningful way of ordering the disorder of experience, as it shows a surface sensibleness that can be taken as something significant. Artie can revise the stories he hears as many times as he wants, and he still won’t understand what it was like being in the position of what he writes. All he can do is bring meaning to the story by presenting it his own way.
Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern
University, stated that the most evident example of Muas representing both the past and the present is shown in “Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History,” an autobiographical comic strip(346).
Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York, observed that the success of Maus can be attributed to its audacity to cover such a dark topic in the way it did. With the two main audacities being to depict the holocaust as a cartoon and the other being the depiction of a holocaust survivor as a victimizer in his own world, showing him as his own mini tyrant. (48-49)
Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York once said “The Success of Maus is due to a double audacity. The first is the choice to represent the Holocaust as a cartoon, the second to cast its star witness as a victimizer in his own world, a pretty tyrant at home”(48-49).
Nancy K. Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the City University of New York observed that Maus has a double audacity. Which is the book Maus book Maus being represented in a cartoon which is found inappropriate because cartoons are found to be funny and for children and the Holocaust is a serious matter and that Vladek is his own victim in his own world.
Professor of English at Seattle University says that in the maus story the Nazy flag didn’t have any obstacle which tells the reader the the nazys were unstoppable.
Page 42
From Arlene Fish Wilner, professor of English and American studies at rider university
observed that Adam Gopnik found the narrative to sensitive to be depicted realistically. switching the characters to animals would be better present the story (109).
Arlene Fish Wilner Professor of English and American studies at Rider University stated that Aden Gopnik has observed that animal heads attributed to humans reflect that this story is too morbid to present unmasked. (109)
Hamida Bosmajian, Professor of English at Seattle University, has observed that the field of the Nazi flag is never seen in its entirety in Maus; it is always obstructed. Basically through the whole maus they didn’t show the nazy flag it was always hidden for some reason, it could have been because it reminds the main character bad memories.
(42)
Art Spiegelman has noted that the gas was used to kill the agent, “a pesticide manufactured to kill vermin- like fleas and roaches.” (qtd. in chute).
Santino, only the students in the Monday sections of English 111 were required to respond to the October 14 blog post, but I’m glad that you replied as well. The more you practice introducing sources, the easier it becomes.
Art Spiegelman had a way of getting the message across of how /what things were going on during the Holocaust.Maus is a graphic novel. Maus is a comic. Maus is a historical documentation. Maus is a memoir. An unprecedented genre, Art Spiegelman created Maus to record his father’s experience in the Holocaust, and in doing so, recorded his experience being the son of a survivor, and his experience writing about the experience of being the son of a survivor (what a demanding task! http://www.Colorado.edu/honorsjournal/2018/11/07.
Arlene Fish Wilner, Professor of English and American Studies at Rider University stated that this story is too horrible to be presented unmasked causing Art to find a use for animal heads to represent humans in the narrative.