Winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature.
J. M. Coetzee presents a coherent, unorthodox analysis of censorship from the perspective of one who has lived and worked under its shadow. The essays collected here attempt to understand the passion that plays itself out in acts of silencing and censoring. He argues that a destructive dynamic of belligerence and escalation tends to overtake the rivals in any field ruled by censorship.
From Osip Mandelstam commanded to compose an ode in praise of Stalin, to Breyten Breytenbach writing poems under and for the eyes of his prison guards, to Aleksander Solzhenitsyn engaging in a trial of wits with the organs of the Soviet state, "Giving Offense" focuses on the ways authors have historically responded to censorship. It also analyzes the arguments of Catharine MacKinnon for the suppression of pornography and traces the operations of the old South African censorship system.
"The most impressive feature of Coetzee's essays, besides his ear for language, is his coolheadedness. He can dissect repugnant notions and analyze volatile emotions with enviable poise."--Kenneth Baker, "San Francisco Chronicle Book Review"
"Those looking for simple, ringing denunciations of censorship's evils will be disappointed. Coetzee explicitly rejects such noble tritenesses. Instead . . . he pursues censorship's deeper, more fickle meanings and unmeanings."--"Kirkus Reviews"
"These erudite essays form a powerful, bracing criticism of censorship in its many guises."--"Publishers Weekly"
"Giving Offense gets its incisive message across clearly, even when Coetzee is dealing with such murky theorists as Bakhtin, Lacan, Foucault, and Rene; Girard.Coetzee has a light, wry sense of humor."--Bill Marx, "Hungry Mind Review"
"An extraordinary collection of essays."--Martha Bayles, "New York Times Book Review"
"A disturbing and illuminating moral expedition."--Richard Eder, "Los Angeles Times Book Review"

"This country needs many more books like this one."-Arundhati Roy, author of Walking with the Comrades and The God of Small Things A powerful eyewitness account of life in an Indian prison shows how abolition is necessary to achieve a democratic transformation of society. In May 2007, Arun Ferreira, a democratic rights activist, was picked up at a railway station in western India, detained by the court, and condemned to prison for an expanding list of crimes: criminal conspiracy, murder, possession of arms, and rioting, among others added during his detention. In one of the most notorious prisons in India, Arun Ferreira was constantly abused and tortured. Over the next several years, each of the ten cases slapped against him fell apart. At long last, Ferreira was acquitted of all charges. As he exited the prison, moments away from freedom, he was rearrested by plainclothes police. He never got to glimpse his family waiting for him just outside the prison gates. In stark and riveting detail, Ferreira recounts the horrors he faced in prison-torture, beatings, the general air of hopelessness-and the small consolations that kept hope alive-strikes and solidarity among inmates. His memoir is a timely reminder that across the globe policing and incarceration are institutions in desperate need of being dismantled.

The Culture of Secrecy is the first comprehensive study of the restriction of official information in modern British history. It seeks to understand why secrets have been kept, and how systems of control have been constructed - and challenged - over the past hundred and sixty years. The author transcends the conventional boundaries of political or social history in his wide-ranging diagnosis of the `British disease' - the legal forms and habits of mind which together have constituted the national tradition of discreet reserve. The chapters range across bureaucrats and ballots, gossip and gay rights, doctors and dole investigators in their exploration of the ethical basis of power in the public, professional, commercial and domestic spheres. Professor Vincent examines concepts such as privacy and confidentiality, honour and integrity, openness and freedom of expression, which have served as benchmarks in the development of the liberal state and society.

The French Revolution of 1789 bequeathed an enduring rhetoric of human rights which made it conventional to declare oneself against censorship and in favour of freedom of expression. But as this book demonstrates, the apparent consensus on this issue in modern France and elsewhere rests on a shaky sense of that rhetoric's history. And while censors have continued to the present day to charge clumsily across delicate moral and political fields, opponents of literary censorship, in particular, have frequently displayed excessive respect for censored material, mistakenly assuming that the censor can be relied upon to identify material that is disturbing, subversive, or true. Circles of Censorship focuses on key episodes in the history of literary censorship in France. It examines the Madame Bovary trial of 1857, and the prosecution a century later of Pauvert, publisher of Sade's complete works. It analyses and criticizes the Freudian-influenced attempts by the Surrealist movement and by Barthes and the Tel Quel group to subvert and evade censorship. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines and approaches including history, literary theory and feminism, Nicholas Harrison presents a provocative and timely critique of the ideas on censorship which resurfaced repeatedly in the discourse of human rights, psychoanalysis and literary culture.

What information about you is available on the Internet? What if it's wrong, humiliating, or true but regrettable? Will it ever go away? Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there's a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives-often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false-will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy. Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, offers a fascinating account of how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cybermobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long-standing notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free.

Fans and detractors of popular music tend to agree on one thing: popular music is a bellwether of an individual's political and cultural values. In the United States, for example, one cannot think of the counterculture apart from its music. For that reason, in virtually every country in the world, some group identifies popular music as a source of potential danger and wants to regulate it. Policing Pop looks into the many ways in which popular music and artists around the world are subjected to censorship, ranging from state control and repression to the efforts of special interest or religious groups to limit expression. The essays collected here focus on the forms of censorship as well as specific instances of how the state and other agencies have attempted to restrict the types of music produced, recorded and performed within a culture. Several show how even unsuccessful attempts to exert the power of the state can cause artists to self-censor. Others point to material that taxes even the most liberal defenders of free speech. Taken together, these essays demonstrate that censoring agents target popular music all over the world, and they raise questions about how artists and the public can resist the narrowing of cultural expression. Author note: Martin Cloonan teaches Popular Music Culture at the University of Glasgow and is the author of Banned! Censorship of Popular Music in Britain, 1967-1992. Reebee Garofalo is Professor at the College of Public and Community Service and is affiliated with the American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston; his most recent book is Rockin' Out: Popular Music in the USA.

In 1883 the editor of a penny newspaper stood trial three times for the "obsolete" crime of blasphemy. The editor was G.W. Foote, the paper was the "Freethinker", and the trial was the defining event of the decade. This is a reconstructed account of blasphemy in Victorian England, retelling the forgotten stories of more than 200 working-class blasphemers, such as Foote, whose stubborn refusal to silence their "hooligan" voices helped secure the present right to speak and write freely, and whose "martyrdom" transformed blasphemy from a religious offence into a class and cultural crime.

A global history of free speech, from the ancient world to today. Hailed as the "first freedom," free speech is the bedrock of democracy. But it is a challenging principle, subject to erosion in times of upheaval. Today, in democracies and authoritarian states around the world, it is on the retreat. In Free Speech, Jacob Mchangama traces the riveting legal, political, and cultural history of this idea. Through captivating stories of free speech's many defenders - from the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes and the ninth-century freethinker al-Razi, to Mary Wollstonecraft, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and modern-day digital activists - Mchangama demonstrates how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide. Yet the desire to restrict speech is also a constant, and he explores how even its champions can be led down this path when the rise of new and contrarian voices challenge power and privilege of all kinds. Meticulously researched, deeply humane and provocative, Free Speech challenges us all to recognise how much we have gained from this principle - and how much we stand to lose without it.

Why free speech is the lifeblood of colleges and universities Free speech is under attack at colleges and universities today, with critics on and off campus challenging the value of open inquiry and freewheeling intellectual debate. Too often speakers are shouted down, professors are threatened, and classes are disrupted. In Speak Freely, Keith Whittington argues that universities must protect and encourage free speech because vigorous free speech is the lifeblood of the university. Without free speech, a university cannot fulfill its most basic, fundamental, and essential purposes, including fostering freedom of thought, ideological diversity, and tolerance. Examining such hot-button issues as trigger warnings, safe spaces, hate speech, disruptive protests, speaker disinvitations, the use of social media by faculty, and academic politics, Speak Freely describes the dangers of empowering campus censors to limit speech and enforce orthodoxy. It explains why free speech and civil discourse are at the heart of the university's mission of creating and nurturing an open and diverse community dedicated to learning. It shows why universities must make space for voices from both the left and right. And it points out how better understanding why the university lives or dies by free speech can help guide everyone-including students, faculty, administrators, and alumni-when faced with difficult challenges such as unpopular, hateful, or dangerous speech. Timely and vitally important, Speak Freely demonstrates why universities can succeed only by fostering more free speech, more free thought-and a greater tolerance for both.

This is the third volume in a new paperback edition of Steve Nicholson's comprehensive four-volume analysis of British theatre censorship from 1900-1968, based on previously undocumented material in the Lord Chamberlain's Correspondence Archives in the British Library and the Royal Archives at Windsor. Focusing on plays we know, plays we have forgotten, and plays which were silenced for ever, Censorship of British Drama demonstrates the extent to which censorship shaped the theatre voices of this decade. The book charts the early struggles with Royal Court writers such as John Osborne and with Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop; the stand-offs with Samuel Beckett and with leading American dramatists; the Lord Chamberlain's determination to keep homosexuality off the stage, which turned him into a laughing stock when he was unable to prevent a private theatre club in London's West End from staging a series of American plays he had banned, including Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge and Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; and the Lord Chamberlain's attempts to persuade the government to give him new powers and to rewrite the law. This new edition includes a contextualising timeline for those readers who are unfamiliar with the period, and a new preface. DOI: https://doi.org/10.47788/SEEA6021

Like every authoritarian regime in history, Nazi Germany tried to inhibit ideological freedom through book censorship. Between 1933 and 1945, Hitler's party orchestrated a massive campaign to take control of all forms of communication in the nation. Although Nazi propaganda has been widely studied, modern historians have decidedly neglected book censorship. In this book, noted scholar Guenter Lewy offers the first comprehensive analysis in English language of the ways in which the Nazis exerted control over the creation, publication, and distribution of books by authors, publishers, bookstores, and libraries. While Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry played a leading role, other entities engaged in censorship, including the Ministry of Science, Education and Popular Culture, Rosenberg's Office for the Advancement of German Literature, and Bouhler's Party Commission for the Protection of National Socialist Literature. The Gestapo and the Security Service were also involved in the process of enforcement. All of these organizations often acted on their own initiative both on the state and on the local level. As a result of these overlapping jurisdictions, the process of control was disorderly. This illustrates once again that the Third Reich was monolithic in theory but polycratic in practice. This book explores not only how the Nazis implemented book censorship, but also the ways in which this process affected German intellectuals. It deals with the controversial issue of the so-called "inner immigrants" - authors who were opposed to National Socialism but chose to remain in Germany and concealed the true meaning of their writings by way of allegories or parables, such as Gottfried Benn, Gerhart Hauptmann, Ernst Junger, Jochen Klepper, and Ernst Wiechert. Describing the fate of writers and publishers who came into conflict with the organs of censorship, Lewy provides a disconcerting and realistic portrait of intellectual life under the Nazi dictatorship.

A groundbreaking and surprising look at contemporary censorship in China As authoritarian governments around the world develop sophisticated technologies for controlling information, many observers have predicted that these controls would be easily evaded by savvy internet users. In Censored, Margaret Roberts demonstrates that even censorship that is easy to circumvent can still be enormously effective. Taking advantage of digital data harvested from the Chinese internet and leaks from China's Propaganda Department, Roberts sheds light on how censorship influences the Chinese public. Drawing parallels between censorship in China and the way information is manipulated in the United States and other democracies, she reveals how internet users are susceptible to control even in the most open societies. Censored gives an unprecedented view of how governments encroach on the media consumption of citizens.

Better Left Unsaid is in the unseemly position of defending censorship from the central allegations that are traditionally leveled against it. Taking two genres generally presumed to have been stymied by the censor's knife-the Victorian novel and classical Hollywood film-this book reveals the varied ways in which censorship, for all its blustery self-righteousness, can actually be good for sex, politics, feminism, and art. As much as Victorianism is equated with such cultural impulses as repression and prudery, few scholars have explored the Victorian novel as a "censored" commodity-thanks, in large part, to the indirectness and intangibility of England's literary censorship process. This indirection stands in sharp contrast to the explicit, detailed formality of Hollywood's infamous Production Code of 1930. In comparing these two versions of censorship, Nora Gilbert explores the paradoxical effects of prohibitive practices. Rather than being ruined by censorship, Victorian novels and Hays Code films were stirred and stimulated by the very forces meant to restrain them.

For well over a decade, half-baked analysis and phony science have been used by some feminists to side-track the women's movement into puritanical campaigns against sexual material and imaginative sexual exploration. Many feminists would say that this widely publicised version of feminism is itself sexist, and that the increasingly vocal anti-pornography campaigns are founded on theoretical dead-ends that have allowed feminists to deviate drastically from the basic goals of women's liberation. Bad Girls & Dirty Pictures puts these anti-sex, anti-porn arguments under the microscope of a more thorough and considered feminist analysis. It examines the flaws in the research that purports to prove the harm of pornography and warns against the continuing use of censorship by politicians and the moral right, as well as exposing the dangers of anti-porn feminist arguments. Contributions from a wide range of women, including sex workers and academics, remind us that pornography does not have a special place in our oppression, and that censorship must still be seen as dangerous enemy of women. Bad Girls & Dirty Pictures is a much-needed antidote to falsehoods, shabby thinking, and patronising sexism that have fuelled anti-pornography campaigns and misled the women's movement.

How digital media are transforming Arab culture, literature, and politics In recent years, Arab activists have confronted authoritarian regimes both on the street and online, leaking videos and exposing atrocities, and demanding political rights. Tarek El-Ariss situates these critiques of power within a pervasive culture of scandal and leaks and shows how cultural production and political change in the contemporary Arab world are enabled by digital technology yet emerge from traditional cultural models. Focusing on a new generation of activists and authors from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, El-Ariss connects WikiLeaks to The Arabian Nights, Twitter to mystical revelation, cyberattacks to pre-Islamic tribal raids, and digital activism to the affective scene-making of Arab popular culture. He shifts the epistemological and historical frameworks from the postcolonial condition to the digital condition and shows how new media challenge the novel as the traditional vehicle for political consciousness and intellectual debate. Theorizing the rise of "the leaking subject" who reveals, contests, and writes through chaotic yet highly political means, El-Ariss investigates the digital consciousness, virality, and affective forms of knowledge that jolt and inform the public and that draw readers in to the unfolding fiction of scandal. Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals maps the changing landscape of Arab modernity, or Nahda, in the digital age and traces how concepts such as the nation, community, power, the intellectual, the author, and the novel are hacked and recoded through new modes of confrontation, circulation, and dissent.

The New Iranian Cinema is considered by many to be the most fascinating cultural phenomenon produced within the Islamic Republic of Iran. Containing twelve first-hand interviews with the most renowned film-makers living and working in contemporary Iran, this book provides insights into film-making within a society often at odds with its rulers. Reflecting upon the 1979 revolution and its influence on their work, as well as the effect of their films on Iranian audiences, film-makers such as Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi highlight the key issues surrounding the reception of Iranian cinema in the West and also its role in the development of Iran's global image. Through these conversations Shiva Rahbaran reveals that the seeds of the New Iranian Cinema were sown long before the revolution, and that Iranian film-makers gave rise to a cinema which became a global phenomenon despite censorship, sanctions and political isolation.

Censorship pervades all aspects of political, social and cultural life in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Faced with strict state control of cultural output, Iranian authors and writers have had to adapt their work to avoid falling foul of the censors. In this pioneering study, Alireza Abiz offers an in-depth, interdisciplinary analysis of how censorship and the political order of Iran have influenced contemporary Persian literature, both in terms of content and tone. As censorship is unrecorded and not officially acknowledged in Iran, the author has examined newspaper records and conducted first-hand interviews with Iranian poets and writers. looking into the ways in which poets and writers attempt to subvert the codes of censorship by using symbolism and figurative language to hide their more controversial messages. A ground-breaking analysis, this book will be vital reading for anyone interested in contemporary cultural politics and literature in Iran.

Featuring a timely and diverse cross-section of frequently targeted titles, complete with many quotes and comments from authors whose works have been challenged, this book will be an important tool for library managers, children's and YA librarians, and teachers. In our polarized environment, the censorship and outright banning of children's books which some deem to be controversial or objectionable remains a major concern for libraries. Intellectual freedom champion Scales returns to the fray with a new edition of her matchless guide, updating the focus to titles published since 2015 which have been the target of challenges. School and public librarians, LIS students, and classroom educators will find the assistance and support they need to defend these challenged books with an informed response while ensuring access to young book lovers. For each of the dozens of titles covered, readers will find a book summary; a report of the specific challenges; quotes from reviews, plus a list of awards and accolades; talking points for discussing the book's issues and themes; links to the book's website, additional resources about the book, and suggested further reading; and read-alikes that have been challenged for similar reasons.

As Americans we often take our freedom of speech for granted. When we talk about censorship we talk about China, the former Soviet Union. But the recent presidential election has shined a spotlight on profound acts of censorship in our own backyard. Both provocative and timely, "Burn this Book" includes a sterling list of award-winning writers; it is sure to ignite spirited dialogue. In "Witness: The Inward Testimony", Nadine Gordimer discusses the role of the writer as observer, and as someone who sees what is really taking place. She looks to Proust, Oe, Flaubert, Graham Green to see how their philosophy squares with her own, ultimately concluding Literature has been and remains a means of people rediscovering themselves. In "Freedom to Write", Orham Pamuk elegantly describes escorting Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter around Turkey and how that experience changed his life. In "The Value of the Word" Salman Rushdie shares a story from Bugakov's novel "The Master and the Margarita", in which the Devil talks to a frustrated writer called The Master. The writer is so upset with his own work he decides to burn it: How could you do that? The devil asks. Manuscripts do not burn. Indeed, manuscripts do not burn, Rushdie argues, but writers do.

The Censorship Effect argues that the stylistic features that prompted the criminal indictment of Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du Mal were the products of an intense struggle and negotiation with a culture of censorship. Censorship not only shaped the composition of these works but affected their reception and continues to operate in the field of literary criticism. Far from manifesting the autonomy proclaimed by modernism's defenders, both works show (and retain) signs of self-censorship. French modernism begins and remains deeply embedded in a culture of censorship whose proprieties, both literary and social, Baudelaire and Flaubert nevertheless challenged and transgressed.

A deeply researched legal drama that documents this landmark First Amendment ruling-one that is more critical and controversial than ever. Actual Malice tells the full story of New York Times v. Sullivan, the dramatic case that grew out of segregationists' attempts to quash reporting on the civil rights movement. In its landmark 1964 decision, the Supreme Court held that a public official must prove "actual malice" or reckless disregard of the truth to win a libel lawsuit, providing critical protections for free speech and freedom of the press. Drawing on previously unexplored sources, including the archives of the New York Times Company and civil rights leaders, Samantha Barbas tracks the saga behind one of the most important First Amendment rulings in history. She situates the case within the turbulent 1960s and the history of the press, alongside striking portraits of the lawyers, officials, judges, activists, editors, and journalists who brought and defended the case. As the Sullivan doctrine faces growing controversy, Actual Malice reminds us of the stakes of the case that shaped American reporting and public discourse as we know it.

Iconoclasm, Identity Politics and the Erasure of History surveys the origins, uses and manifestations of iconoclasm in history, art and public culture. It examines the various causes and uses of image/property defacement as a tool of political, national, religious and artistic process. This is one of the first books to examine the outbreak of iconoclasm in Europe and North America in the summer of 2020 in the context of previous outbreaks, and it examines the implications of iconoclasm as a form of control, censorship and expression.

Shaheed Nick Mohammed's Communication and the Globalization of Culture: Beyond Tradition and Borders provides a unique perspective on the concept of culture and its fate in the globalized, mediated environment. Acknowledging widespread fears of cultural erosion at the hands of dominant global forces, Mohammed argues that what we understand as culture has always been the product of global forces, including those of trade and exchange. Our very conceptions of culture are questioned. The sanctity of tradition, religion, and heritage, the book suggests, should give way to an appreciation of the quite mundane origins of cultural artifacts, invented often as matters of political or social expedience, adopted sometimes in accidents of history and canonized by time into the catechisms of cultural belief. Communication and the Globalization of Culture also suggests several mechanisms by which pragmatic social practices and fictional discourses make their way into the cultural beliefs and traditions of societies. Shaheed Nick Mohammed examines how the modern globalized environment gives rise to cultural practices that demonstrate cultural inventions, imagined communities, and manufactured cultural products, suggesting that such inventions and imaginations are not uniquely modern but rather a continuation of cultural inventions that long pre-date our media-globalized environment.