Empathy is being at one with the emotions of others, including but not limited to their suffering. It is not pity or even sympathy; it is understanding and entering into, or recognizing and sharing, another person’s feelings. Returning to the first few distinctions we made, recall that our own life experience enables to understand something of the life experience of others. That emotional understanding is the distinction we call empathy.
Real
True Narratives
Book narratives:
- Mark Rifkin, The Politics of Kinship: Race, Family, Governance (Duke University Press, 2024).
- Sophia Balakian, Unsettled Families: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and the Politics of Kinship (Stanford University Press, 2025).
- David L. Eng, The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy (Duke University Press, 2010).
- James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands (University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
- David Sneath, The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, and Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia (Columbia University Press, 2007).
- Christine Ward Gailey, Kinship to Kingship: Gender Hierarchy and State Formation in the Tongan Islands (University of Texas Press, 1987).
- David M. Schneider, American Kinship: A Cultural Account (University of Chicago Press, 1980).
- Bernard Chapais, Primeval Kinship: How Pair-Bonding Gave Birth to Human Society (Harvard University Press, 2008).
- Kristin E. Heyer, Kinship Across Borders: A Christian Ethic of Immigration (Georgetown University Press, 2012).
- Stefan Vogt, et. al., eds., Unacknowledged Kinships: Postcolonial Studies and the Historiography of Zionism (Brandeis University Press, 2023).
- Elizabeth Elbourne, Empire, Kinship and Violence: Family Histories, Indigenous Rights and the Making of Settler Colonialism, 1770-1842 (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
- Thomas R. Trautmann, ed., Kinship and History in South Asia (University of Michigan Press, 1974).
- Jessica Catherine Reuther, The Bonds of Kinship in Dahomey: Portraits of West African Girlhood, 1720–1940 (Indiana University Press, 2025).
- Ellen Herman, Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States (University of Chicago Press, 2008).
- Carolyn Earle Billingsley, Communities of Kinship: Antebellum Families and the Settlement of the Cotton Frontier (University of Georgia Press, 2017)
Technical and Analytical Readings
- Marshall Sahlins, What Kinship Is - And Is Not (University of Chicago Press, 2014).
- Janet Carsten, After Kinship (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
- Thomas R. Trautmann & Peter M. Whiteley, eds., Crow-Omaha: New Light on a Classic Problem of Kinship Analysis (University of Arizona Press, 2012)
- Robin Fox, Kinship and Marriage: An Anthropological Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 1967).
- Rosemary A. Joyce & Susan D. Gillespie, eds., Beyond Kinship: Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000).
- David M. Schneider, A Critique of the Study of Kinship (University of Michigan Press, 1984).
- Sarah Franklin & Susan McKinnon, eds., Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies (Duke University Press, 2002).
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Poetry
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
[Paul Lawrence Dunbar, “Sympathy”]
Other poems:
- Sunil Gangopadhyay, “A Truth-Bound Sentiment”
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
In the Broadway musical “Annie” (1977) (approx. 113-127’), the title character lives a hard-knock life because she is an orphan. Then she finds favor with Daddy Warbucks. The play is based on the famous comic strip “Little Orphan Annie”. Here is a link to a full performance, and to filmed performances available for purchase, from 1982, and from 2014.
From the dark side:
Gioachino Rossini, La Cenerentola (Cinderella): (1817) (approx. 150-200’) (libretto), “is instantly recognizable as the fairy tale ‘Cinderella.’ Yet Gioachino Rossini’s intricate, hilarious, and heartfelt take on the story is no mere bedtime fable. Magical elements go out the window, while the stately archetypes of fairy-tale narratives give way to real, flesh-and-blood characters. Cinderella falls in love at first sight, but she also feels the pain of familial rejection, the sting of bullying, and the ache of self-doubt, which make her profound joy at the end of the opera all the more gratifying.” No one treated opera’s Cinderella fairly, except maybe her prince, her fairy godmother, and of course her animal friends. Still: “. . . Angelina of La Cenerentola is more than an accessory on the arm of some glib urban warrior. And she isn’t waiting for Mr. Wonderful to bring her out of her shell. She’s already out. She’s a believable human being who remains true to herself, and above all remains true to love.” “. . . the opera mixes domestic drudgery with princes and philosophers, opera buffa grotesques with sentiment and pathos . . .” The ethical lessons in the opera are many. Top audio-only recorded performances are by Terrani & Araiza, Ferro conducting, in 1980; and DiDonato & Zapata, Zedda conducting, in 2004. Top recorded performances, with video, are by von Stade & Araiza, Abbado conducting, in 1981; Donose & Mironov, Jurowski conducting, in 2005 ***; and Kuhlman & Dale, Renzetti conducting, in 2012.
The musical “Oliver!” (1960) (approx. 134-154’) is based on Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progress (1838) about a boy who is sent to a workhouse after his mother dies. You can see the musical here for free, or rent/buy a film version here. Here are links to the original Broadway cast recording, the 1994 Palladium cast recording, and the 2009 London cast recording.
The musical “Into the Woods” (1987) combines three Grimm fairy tales, set to music. “The story follows a Baker and his wife, who wish to have a child; Cinderella, who wishes to attend the King's Festival; and Jack, who wishes his cow would give milk. When the Baker and his wife learn that they cannot have a child because of a Witch's curse, the two set off on a journey to break the curse. Everyone's wish is granted, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them later with disastrous results.” Here are links to the original Broadway cast recording, and to the 2022 Broadway cast recording.
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Billy Joel, "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" (lyrics)
From the dark side:
- Queen, “Is This the World We Created?” (lyrics)
Visual Arts
Film and Stage
- In Cold Blood: filmed with the sensibilities of the 1960s, this quasi-documentary of a murder of a Kansas family is a study in empathy for the victims and to an extent for the murderers
- Daniel, about the Rosenberg executions, seen through the eyes of one of their sons
- Donnie Brasco, about an FBI agent who comes to identify with the Mafia members whose gang he has infiltrated
- Ladybird, Ladybird “asks viewers to imagine what it is like for Maggie . . . to open a newspaper one day and see a photograph of a boy in need of adoptive parents.”
- Violette: challenging the limits of empathy, this film tells the true story of a young woman who murders her father to collect an inheritance
- Au Hazard Balthazar: filmmaker Robert Bresson presents the life of a mistreated animal, “noble in its acceptance of a life over which it has no control”, in a way that allows the audience to draw its own conclusions about his experiences
What is kindness? Where is the line between empathy and arrogance? These two films raise these and other questions:
- Brother’s Keeper, a documentary about two brothers in upstate New York, one of whom was accused of killing the other
- Of Mice and Men, in which Steinbeck left no doubt who ended Lennie’s life