Tag Archives: empathy

“Clarissa” Taught the Age Empathy

By Robin Bates | Published: February 28, 2021

A new book argues that epistolary novels, especially “Clarissa,” taught the 18th century empathy.

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To Teach Empathy, Turn to Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: September 16, 2020

Literature is a powerful way to teach empathy–but do so, literature must be taught in different ways than many teachers do.

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Eyes Welded Shut by Mortal Pain

By Robin Bates | Published: July 27, 2019

Spiritual Sunday Today’s Old Testament lesson, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, is catnip to hellfire and brimstone preachers, who use it as a parable for what they regard at the modern world’s sinful ways. I find deeply problematic, however, the idea that a city is so unredeemable that every man, woman and child must […]

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A Tolstoy Fable about Radical Empathy

By Robin Bates | Published: August 12, 2015

Tolstoy’s story “Esarhaddon” captures a common wish fulfillment of the powerless–that the oppressor see the world through the eyes of the oppressed.

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Can Lit Make the Rich More Empathetic?

By Robin Bates | Published: February 2, 2015

With growing income disparity comes a decline in empathy. Literature can help rebuild our compassion.

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