Banned Books

Banned Books

 We take

our

freedom

seriously

here in the

United

States

 So when someone tries to say, “what‟s good for

me is good for you”…there‟s likely to be

problems…

 The United States Constitution, and

specifically the first ten amendments known

as the Bill of Rights, guarantees our

individual freedoms and civil rights…

 First Amendment

 “Congress shall make no law respecting an

establishment of religion, or prohibiting the

free exercise thereof; or abridging the

freedom of speech, or of the press; or the

right of the people peaceably to assemble,

and to petition the government for a redress

of grievances.”

The vocabulary of book banning



 A challenge to a book is an attempt to

remove or restrict materials based upon

objections of a person or group.

The vocabulary of book banning



 The banning of a book is the removal of

those materials.

The vocabulary of book banning



 Censorship is the control of what people may

say or hear, write or read, see or do. In most

cases, this kind of control comes from a

government or from various types of private

groups. Censorship can affect books, newspapers,

magazines, motion pictures, radio and television

programs and speeches. It may also influence

painting, sculpture and other arts"

World Book Encyclopedia.



There are different types of censorship:

 Moral censorship based on obscenity laws

 Political censorship used by governments

that fear free expression

 Religious censorship where the government

is close to one religion or where religious

feelings run high

Who challenges or bans books?

 Individuals

 Governments

 Churches

 Religious groups

 Military

 Social entities

Historical perspective on censorship



 From the earliest of

time to present day,

censorship and book

banning has been

going on.

Historical perspective on censorship

 In 585 BC, the fabulist

Aesop, was thrown

from a cliff by priests of

Delphi, considered to

be “an execution for

sacrilege” stemming

from his fables.

Historical perspective on censorship

 CENSOR (from Lat.

censere, assess, estimate;

in Gr. rtunr,~s). I. In

ancient Rome, the title of

the two Roman officials

who presided over the

census, the registration of

individual citizens for the

purpose of determining the

duties which they owed „to,

the community.

Historical perspective on censorship



 Over time, these “censors” took on more

responsibility for overseeing activities of a

“moral” nature rather than strictly the

registration of citizens….

 The playwright Euripides

(480 -406 BC) defended

the true liberty of freeborn

men; the right to speak

freely, and he added

diplomatically: "Who

neither can nor will may

hold his peace. What can

be more just in a State

than this?".

 In 398 BC, at the height

of the Peloponnesian

War, Aristophanes

introduced his satire,

Lysistrata. In it, Athenian

women, fed up with the

war, barricade

themselves in the

Acropolis and go on a sex

strike to force their

husbands to vote for

peace with Sparta…

 The Athenian ruler Cleophon called for

Aristophanes‟ deportation as an alien for

writing morally offensive material. The

manner in which Aristophanes satirized

Cleophon may have been a deciding

factor…(quote?)

 Censorship was a not an unusual feature of

ancient societies.

 Rome possessed sumptuary laws, and laws

dealing with moral offences, which it was the

duty of other magistrates to enforce.

 Besides book

banning, Romans,

like the Greeks before

them, also practiced

book burning.

Tiberius enacted a

policy of burning

books which was

criticized by the Elder

Seneca. Tiberius not

only burned books but

had authors

executed.

 Ovid‟s "Ars Amatoria" (The Art of Love) c. 1

B.C. is a treatise on the art of seduction and

intrigue. The message was subversive of

the official program of moral reforms then

being fostered by Emperor Augustus. It also

included a number of references in their

contexts both flippant and tactless to

symbols of Augustus's personal prestige.

 A.D. 8 Rome : The Emperor Augustus banished

Ovid for writing "Ars Amatoria" and for an

“unknown act of folly.” Some scholars feel Ovid

insinuated that Augustus‟ wife, Julia, was having

an adulterous affair with D. Silanus, and that this is

really what caused the book to be banned.



 Ovid was sent to the Greek town of Tomi, near the

mouth of the Danube, where he died in exile eight

years later.

 In 1235, the Inquisition

was established by

Pope Gregory IX to

patrol and enforce the

orthodoxy of the

Catholic faith.

 The Inquisition, over the

next four hundred years,

practiced an extremely

direct form of censorship

involving the examination

of published works, their

judgment of heretical

content or otherwise, and

the seeking out and

examination of the

authors.

 If an idea did not fit in

with established

church law, it could not

be circulated. Writers

such as Giordono

Bruno, in 1600, and

Lucilio Vanini, 1619,

were burned along

with their works.

 1613 – Galileo

struggles with

Inquisition censors

regarding his works on

the Copernican theory.

 From 1559 to 1964,

the Vatican published

an index listing books

that Roman Catholics

were forbidden to

read, entirely or in part.

 In their zeal to

Christianize the

New World,

missionaries

destroyed

almost all of the

Indians' books.

This codex, now

in the British

Library, is one of

the few

survivors.

 Martin Luther's

disagreement with the

Pope led to the

Protestant Reformation

and the banning of all

his writings.

 Renowned as leaders of

the Renaissance in

Northern Europe,

Erasmus, Collet, and More

were Christian Humanists.

Although Erasmus and

More both defended the

Roman Church, their

works were placed on the

Index of Prohibited Books.

 Evolutionists really

seemed to hit a chord

with public disapproval

as illustrated in this

caricature of Charles

Darwin, published in

The Hornet in 1871.

 In 1885, at the Public

Library in Concord

Massachusetts

(hometown of Henry

David Thoreau), The

Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn was

banned as “trash and

suitable only for the

slums.”

 On June 1, 1981, police officers and

government supporters of Sri Lanka set fire

to the Jaffna Library. “In many people‟s

minds, the fire ignited the ethnic hatred that

had been brewing for decades between this

island‟s Buddhist Sinhalese majority and thr

Hindu Tamil minority.”

 In 1989, the Ayatollah

Khomeini put a death

sentence on author

Salmon Rushdie for his

novel, Satanic Verses,

which was thought to be

an insult to Islam and is

banned in Islamic

countries. At least Rushdie

didn‟t get thrown off a rock

like Aesop!

 Among the

library‟s

collection were:

 97,000 medical

texts written on

ole, or palm

leaves

 The only

existing copies

of Tamil

religious books

and works of

Tamil

philosophers

 Vast collection

of Tamil

newspapers

and periodicals

 An hour after sundown on August 25, 1992,

Serbian militia in the hills surrounding

Sarajevo, began firing shells at the National

and University Library of Bosnia and

Herzegovina in an effort to erase Bosnia‟s

multiethnic cultural heritage

.

 10 % of the library‟s

collection was lost:

 1.5 million volumes

 4,000 rare books

 478 bound manuscripts

 100 years of Bosnian

newspapers and

journals

 2 centuries worth of of

photographs depicting

the country‟s cultural

and political life

 Posters

 Musical scores

Why are books banned?

 According to the The 100 Most Frequently

Challenged Books, Challenges by

Initiator, Institution, Type, and Year, the

top three reasons, in order, for challenging

material are the material is considered to be

“sexually explicit” contain “offensive

language,” and be “unsuited to age group.”

 Basically, banning is motivated by either

politics, concerns regarding obscenity or

religion.

Politics









 “Western censorship” is said to have begun with the

censor and death of Socrates.

Political Censorship

 Socrates forthrightness

as a teacher and a

philosopher exposed

him to punishments of

the state. He just

wasn‟t politically

correct!

Political Censorship

 Accused first of denying the gods

recognized by the state and introducing new

divinities, and then of “corrupting the youth,”

Socrates was found guilty and condemned

to death by the state.

 In 1735

American

colonist John

Peter Zenger

was on trial for

libel. As the

publisher of the

New-York

Weekly Journal,

he had criticized

the British

government.

Political Censorship

 In 1792, Thomas

Paine‟s writings were

the subject of bitter

controversy in America,

where he supported the

cause of the colonies,

and in England, where

his attack on English

institutions in his Rights

of Man led to his

indictment for treason

and his flight to France.

 And then we have some particularly dark days

on book censorship tied into the whole Nazi era.

Political Censorship

 One way the Nazis

cleansed the country of

"un-German" thoughts

was through

censorship. A "brown

shirt" (member of the

SA) throws some more

fuel--"un-German"

books-- into a roaring

fire on the Opernplatz

in Berlin. May 10,

1933.

 in 1933 on Goettingen's Albani Platz , by burning

ideology-inconsistent books.

Political Censorship









 In 1971, the U.S. government tried to stop the New York

Times and the Washington Post from publishing parts of a

secret study of the war entitled The Pentagon Papers.

Moral Censorship

 Obescenity : “The quality or state of being

morally abhorrent or socially taboo, esp. as

a result of referring to or depicting sexual or

excretory functions.”

 Black‟s Law Dictionary

Moral Censorship

 In 1818, a member of the English Society for

the Suppression of Vice was one Thomas

Bowdler, who in this year published The

Bowdler Family Shakespere, excised of all

'words and expressions... which cannot with

propriety be read aloud in a family'.

Bowdlerizing a book!

 Bowlderize: to expurgate (a play, novel or

other written work) by removing or changing

passages one considers “vulgar” or

“objectionable.”



 Vulgar: “lacking in cultivation, perception, or

taste: COARSE; morally crude,

undeveloped or unregenerate :GROSS”

 Merriam Webster‟s Collegiate Dictionary

Bowdlerizing

 In what is considered to be the first example of book

censorship, Homer‟s The Odyssey (387BC), seemed to

have ruffled a few feathers. Plato suggesting cleaning up

or “bowdlerizing” Homer‟s work for “younger readers.”

Moral Censorship

 In 1873 the 'Comstock Act' is passed by Congress,

criminalizing the depositing of “obscene, lewd or

lascivious book or other publication of indecent

character' in the US mail.” This act was officially

known as the Federal Anti-Obscenity Act.



 Lewd: “sexually unchaste or licentious; OBSCENE

OR VULGAR

 Merriam Webster‟s Collegiate Dictionary

Moral Censorship

 The bill was lobbied for by

Anthony Comstock, founder

and secretary of the New

York Society for the

Suppression of Vice.

Moral Censorship

 Comstock campaigned tirelessly for

censorship laws not only to stamp out erotic

subject matter in art or literature, but to

suppress information about sexuality,

reproduction, and birth control.

Moral Censorship

 In 1915, Margaret Sanger's husband was

jailed for distributing her Family Limitation,

which described and advocated various

methods of contraception. Sanger herself

had fled the country to avoid prosecution,

but would return in 1916 to start the

American Birth Control League, which

eventually merged with other groups to form

Planned Parenthood.

Moral Censorship

 While unenforced these days, these laws

are still on the books and have been

referenced by…..

Moral Censorship

 The Telecommunications Act of 1996 which

applies some of these Comstock laws to

computer networks among other things…!

Moral Censorship

 Books banned from the U. S. mails under the

Comstock Law included many of the greatest

classics:

 Aristophanes Lysistrata,

 Rabelais's Gargantua,

 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

 Boccaccio's Decameron

 The Arabian Nights.

Moral Censorship

 Modern authors censored under the Comstock Law

include:

 Honore de Balzac

 Victor Hugo

 Oscar Wilde

 Ernst Hemingway

 Eugene O' Neil

 James Joyce

 D.H. Lawrence

 John Steinbeck

 William Faulkner

 F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Moral Censorship

 The U.S. Senate

commences an inquiry,

and brings to court

Entertaining Comics, for

producing titles such as

Tales from the Crypt and

Vault of Horror. The trial

was incited by publication

of Dr Fredric Wertham's

book, The Seduction of the

Innocents: The Influence

of Comic Books on

Today's Youth.

Religious Censorship

 “In the history of censorship, the oldest and

most frequently recurring controls have

been those designed to prevent the

expression of unorthodox religious ideas.”

 Anne Haight, Banned Books.

Religious Censorship

 The most notable example was the Index

Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Prohibited

Books)which was intended to regulate the

reading of the world‟s Catholic population.

 This index dates back to Apostolic times

when the Ephesian converts of St. Paul

made a bonfire of hundreds of volumes

which they thought were based on

superstition.

Religious Censorship

 Then we had the boys of the Inquisition..

 Inquisition: “3a. a former Roman Catholic

tribunal for the discovery and punishment of

heresy; 3b: an investigation conducted with

little regard for individual rights…”

 Merriam Webster‟s Collegiate Dictionary

 The use of torture was authorized in 1252 by

Pope Innocent IV. The purpose of torture was to

exact confessions. Since some people

questioned whether confessions received under

torture were valid, the accused would be asked

to verify what they had admitted under torture

several hours later. If they refused to validate

their confession, they would be subject to more

torture!





 Popular methods of torture included flogging,

burning, the rack, and the roasting of feet over

burning coals.

The following books were the most frequently

challenged in 2003:



 Harry Potter series, for its focus on wizardry and magic.

 "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, for using

offensive language.

 "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture"

by Michael A. Bellesiles, for inaccuracy.

 "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers, for racism,

sexual content, offensive language, drugs and violence.

 "Go Ask Alice" by Anonymous, for drugs.

 "We All Fall Down" by Robert Cormier, for offensive

language and sexual content.

 "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson, for

offensive language and occult/satanism.

American Library Association, Office of Intellectual Freedom

Statistics



 Between 1990 and 2000, of the 6,364 challenges

reported to or recorded by the Office for

Intellectual Freedom (see The 100 Most

Frequently Challenged Books):

 1,607 were challenges to “sexually explicit”

material (up 161 since 1999);

 1,427 to material considered to use “offensive

language”; (up 165 since 1999)

 1,256 to material considered “unsuited to age

group”; (up 89 since 1999)

American Library Association, Office of Intellectual

Freedom Statistics





 842 to material with an “occult theme or promoting

the occult or Satanism,”; (up 69 since 1999)

 737 to material considered to be “violent”; (up 107

since 1999)

 515 to material with a homosexual theme or

“promoting homosexuality,” (up 18 since 1999)and

 419 to material “promoting a religious viewpoint.”

(up 22 since 1999)

 Seventy-one percent of the challenges were to

material in schools or school libraries.

 Another twenty-four percent were to material in

public libraries (down two percent since 1999).

 Sixty percent of the challenges were brought by

parents, fifteen percent by patrons, and nine

percent by administrators, both down one percent

since 1999).

Examples of literature suppressed

on political grounds:

Animal Farm,

Dr. Zhivago,

The Grapes of Wrath,

Uncle Tom's Cabin,

Slaughterhouse-Five

Examples of literature suppressed

on religious grounds:

The Bible

The Koran

The Talmud

The Last Temptation

of Christ

Oliver Twist

Examples of literature suppressed

on sexual grounds:

The Bluest Eye

Lolita

Madame Bovary

Lady Chatterley's

Lover

Ulysses

Examples of literature suppressed

on social grounds:

The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn,

The Canterbury Tales

 The Bell Jar

Black Like Me

Fahrenheit 451

Which brings us to this year‟s

college book…

 Bradbury‟s work

describes the impact of

censorship and forced

conformity on a group

of people living in a

future society where

books are forbidden

and burned.

 The novel was written

during the 1950‟s:

 McCarthy era

 Cold War

 and the “golden time”

for television

 Bradbury‟s classic on book

burning was on the reading

list for several English classes

in Foxworth, Mississippi.

 A parent complained to the

superintendent about the use

of the phrase “God damn” in

the book and the book was

removed from the required

reading list.