Censorship and Banned Books

1
Censorship and Banned Books
2
In Terms of Importance

• Censorship - an official who examines books,
  plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and
  television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc.,
  for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed
  objectionable on moral, political, military, or
  other grounds.

3
Terms continued

• To ban (as in book-banning)
• A challenge
• A ban

4
Facts Concerning Censorship

• Places where censorship can occur the
  classroom, the library, school, home
• Literary censorship can include any text.

5
Why Censor?
6
Who Censors?

• Legislators (local, state, federal)
• Members of review boards of any kind (school
  boards)
• Clergy (priests, ministers, etc.)
• School administrators
• Teachers
• Librarians
• Parents
• Theaters
• Book stores
• Television Studios

7
Censorship on the Rise

• Between the years of 1979 and 1984 (5 years), the
  number of reported challenges went from 300 to
  1,000.
• Such works as
• Romeo and Juliet
• Hamlet
• Judy Blume books Then Again Maybe I Wont
  Deenie and Blubber
• The Diary of Anne Frank
• Of Mice and Men
• The Catcher in the Rye
• Huckleberry Finn
• An issue of Sports Illustrated
• Some copies of these particular books showed up
  in libraries torn to shreds.

8
Censorship on the Rise

• Between the years of 1990-2000, 6,364 texts were
  challenged.
• 1,607 sexually explicit material
• 1,427 inappropriate language
• 842 occult theme promoting occult or Satanism
• 737 Violent material
• 515 homosexual reference
• 419 religious themes

9
The First Amendment

• the basic right to freedom of expression.
• Congress Shall Make No Law
• 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 assembly, and to petition the
  Government for a redress of grievances.

10
Upon formation of the Bill of Rights

• Thomas Jefferson states,
• The basis of our governments being the opinion
  of the people, the very first object should be to
  keep that right and were it left to me to decide
  whether we should have a government without
  newspapers or newspapers without government, I
  should not hesitate a moment to prefer the
  latter. But I should mean that every man should
  receive those papers and be capable of reading
  them.

11
Interpreting the First Amendment

• Supreme Court holds responsibility of
  interpreting the First Amendment.
• 1791 Court heard cases of freedom of speech,
  freedom of press, and issues of libel and
  slander, national security, and obscenity.

12
Censorship in History Ancient Greece

• 5th Century BC
• Philosophers, poets, other writers (orators)
• Banned for straying from political and religious
  culture.
• Socrates Think for yourself!

13
Censorship in History Middle Ages

• 400 AD 1400s
• The Church controlled books that were preserved.
• Objectionable authors and books burned at stake.

14
Censorship in History The American Colonies

• 17th 18th Century
• Adopted restrictions from England
• Puritan, Methodist, Baptist, Quaker of
  Massachusetts Blasphemy!

15
The Freedom to Read

• Different than the freedom to write.
• Intellectual freedom.
• Banned Books Week 1985
• American Library Association, American
  Booksellers Association, Association of American
  Publishers.
• Board of Education v. Pico 1982.

16
Why not to Censor
17

• If all books were banned, or even destroyed for
  their content, what information or culture would
  be lost for future generations?
• Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.
• It was a pleasure to burn (3).
• Bradbury You dont have to burn books to
  destroy a culture. Just get them to stop
  reading.
• Knowledge is power.

18
Through the Looking Glass-A chapter from
BookBanning in America, by William Noble

• Whats confusing to some, of course, doesnt
  have to be confusing to others (209).

19
Banned Huckleberry Finn

• The novel has often been criticized for its
  language and characterizations and it is reported
  to be the fourth most banned book in US schools.

20
Controversy

• For Twain's critics, the novel is racist on the
  face of it, and for the most obvious reason many
  characters use the N word throughout. But since
  the action of the book takes place in the south
  twenty years before the Civil War, it would be
  amazing if they didn't use that word.

21

• The NAACP charged that HUCK FINN contained
  "racial slurs" and "belittling racial
  designations.
• Twain used the N-word 219 times.
• Huck Finn logged in at 5 in the Top 100 Most
  Frequently challenged books from 1990 to 1999 and
  14 in 2000 to 2009.

22

• African Americans and others, led by the NAACP,
  begin to challenge the book in the 1950s,
  appalled by the novel's portrayal of the slave
  Jim and its repeated use of the N word.
• But anyone who imagines that Mark Twain meant
  this literally is missing the point.