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Masks and Photographs as Graphic Devices Masks and Photographs as Graphic Devices
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Maus in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Maus in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
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Photos to the Rescue: Spiegelman’s Photographic Testimony Photos to the Rescue: Spiegelman’s Photographic Testimony
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Photography’s Real Face Photography’s Real Face
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Masked Truths, Fragmented Histories Masked Truths, Fragmented Histories
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Notes Notes
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Of Mice and Masks: Photography as Masking in Art Spiegelman’s Maus
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Published:March 2023
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Abstract
This chapter engages with the photographs integrated in Art Spiegelman's Maus to argue that their incorporation in the graphic narrative probes the intrinsic documentary quality of Holocaust photography and questions our reliance on “photography's spectral power.” Despite photography's much-touted facticity, the chapter insists, in representing an event like the Holocaust, comics are better placed to convey the inaccessibility of the past. The chapter then focuses on the questions raised by the actual and simulated photographs in the graphic memoir. Needless to say, the photographs in Maus have attracted an overwhelming amount of scholarly attention. And yet, as the chapter elucidates, observing them through the prism of another graphic device—the mask—reveals a novel vantage point that might otherwise have been obscured. Ultimately, the chapter contends that Spiegelman on the one hand challenges the value of photography as a direct access point to the past and on the other hand elevates the documentary quality of comics. In doing so, the chapter invites us to approach comics with the understanding that it can provide historical evidence where other forms of representation fall short.
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