Over this past week much of the lecture content pertained to discussions regarding the concept of Trauma. Not only were we introduced to what Trauma entails in terms of first hand exposure, but were also given a glimpse into the concepts of second hand or relived Trauma that arises through the process of testimony. We are specifically shown the impacts of Trauma on those that experience the act of bearing witness to a traumatic event, and furthermore the effects of trauma that may also extent to those who “bear witness to witnessing”(Laub 57-92), a concept which has been reviewed in connection to Spiegalman’s Maus in both lecture and many of this weeks blog postings.

Since Spiegelman’s Maus is a representation of Vladeck’s story as told by his son Artie, through the form of commix it is interesting to note the dual implications of Spiegelman’s work. Through his detailed research, he is re-experiencing a form of Trauma that he has been exposed to in witnessing the recounting of his fathers story. However at the same time using commix as the chosen mode through which Spiegelman expresses the events that transpired throughout his fathers experience in the holocaust, Spiegelman himself is undergoing a form of therapy whereby the art form of drawing takes on a therapeutic quality.  This concept is further discussed in Isabel Keng’s Blog post Art Therapy in Post Secret and Maus, as she points out that Spiegelman “lessens the trauma by breaking it down into manageable units and containing it in the small boxes of the comic book format, so that we only have to look at one panel at a time” in much the same way as post secret confines confessions to the size of a postcard.

Joey Levesque also draws upon a comparison between Post Secret and Maus, citing Anita Kelly’s 1999 review of the field in Current Directions in Psychological Science in the discussion of confessionalism and its benefits as Kelly’s article points to “statistically significant correlations between revelatory acts and health” that reveal the importance that the development of art plays in therapy.  I also found Sunny Chen’s post concerning propaganda and its purpose in art to be an interesting component of discussion for the content of Spiegelman’s Maus. As we discussed in Lecture, there is one particular instance in which a news reporter questions art concerning the message he intended to portray through his work. The question is left with an uncertain answer as Art responds with an “I don’t know…” the trailing response representative of his inability to articulate his intentions, relate to his use of commix as a means to express the story in a way that is not only accessible to the public but an important component to working through his own understandings of the situation in an ultimately therapeutic mode of representation.

Another important component of this weeks blogs posts consisted of the discussion of Spiegelman’s decision to represent people in terms of animals. While this choice adds to the easily digestible quality of the work, it also serves a greater purpose within his work. Not only does it serve the purpose of addressing the questions revolving around identification by way of animals and humans alike disguising themselves with various masks, but it also represents a complex concept that’s explanation is aided by the use of animals, rather than human portrayal of characters. In particular Preet Chhina’s blog post addresses this important notion in connection to Foucault’s Panopticon concept, where “The cat’s keep the mice in check, mentally and physically through this idea” of the panopticon. Through the use of commix as a means to represent the stories of his father, Spiegelman is given an opportunity to exercise his artistic abilities and discretions in way that not only represents his fathers story, but his own story of dealing with the issue of dealing with bearing witness to witnessing trauma.