EP 20 A Brief Glimpse Into the Transformative Power of Literature with Bruce Holsinger

Stories and Humanitarian Action

“A poem can change you; A powerful short story can literally change your brain chemistry. At the individual level, the teaching of compassion, of love of community, these are the ways that I think literature probably moves us most effectively, but they're very hard to discern, I think. And you never know what that kind of reading experience is going to result in, what sort of emotional capacity it'll create in readers. Fiction is its own kind of displacement. It takes you out of yourself and temporarily puts you in a different world. If there's any positive relationship there, it's a good way of leaving yourself, leaving your home for a little while, leaving your comfort zone, and that's what displacement is.”