{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"\u201cEmpathy is Active.\u201d Henry Reese, on Salman Rushdie, City of Asylum, and the \u201cReader Effect.\u201d","description":"In 1997, Henry Reese and his wife, Diane Samuels, were at a public talk by writer Salman Rushdie, and inspired by his call for communities around the world to offer sanctuary to exiled writers. They "kicked each other under the chair" and thought, why not? Six years later, they founded the City of Asylum, Pittsburgh, a multi-unit residency program that has welcomed exiled writers and artists from China, Syria, Bangladesh and beyond.  Twenty-five years later, Reese was invited to interview Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institute Amphitheater. Just as the interview was about to begin, Rushdie was violently attacked. Reese has described the audience\u2019s rushing to the writer\u2019s aid, attributing it to what Reese calls the \u201creader effect\u201d \u2013 a real time demonstration of how reading literature and sharing stories builds empathy and meaningful community. ","author_name":"Free to Think Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/scholarsatrisk.org\/podcast","html":"