This book deals with the entertainment industries and their engagement in widespread marketing of violent movies, music, and electronic games to children that is inconsistent with the cautionary messages of their own parental advisories and that undermines parents' attempts to make informed decisions about their children's exposure to violent content.

In Dirt for Art's Sake, Elisabeth Ladenson recounts the most visible of modern obscenity trials involving scandalous books and their authors. What, she asks, do these often-colorful legal histories have to tell us about the works themselves and about a changing cultural climate that first treated them as filth and later celebrated them as masterpieces?

Ladenson's narrative starts with Madame Bovary (Flaubert was tried in France in 1857) and finishes with Fanny Hill (written in the eighteenth century, put on trial in the United States in 1966); she considers, along the way, Les Fleurs du Mal, Ulysses, The Well of Loneliness, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer, Lolita, and the works of the Marquis de Sade. Over the course of roughly a century, Ladenson finds, two ideas that had been circulating in the form of avant-garde heresy gradually became accepted as truisms, and eventually as grounds for legal defense. The first is captured in the formula "art for art's sake" the notion that a work of art exists in a realm independent of conventional morality. The second is realism, vilified by its critics as "dirt for dirt's sake." In Ladenson's view, the truth of the matter is closer to dirt for art's sake "the idea that the work of art may legitimately include the representation of all aspects of life, including the unpleasant and the sordid.

Ladenson also considers cinematic adaptations of these novels, among them Vincente Minnelli's Madame Bovary, Stanley Kubrick's Lolita and the 1997 remake directed by Adrian Lyne, and various attempts to translate de Sade's works and life into film, which faced similar censorship travails. Written with a keen awareness of ongoing debates about free speech, Dirt for Art's Sake traces the legal and social acceptance of controversial works with critical acumen and delightful wit."

In this gracefully written, accessible and entertaining volume, John Semonche surveys censorship for reasons of sex from the nineteenth century up to the present. He covers the various forms of American media-books and periodicals, pictorial art, motion pictures, music and dance, and radio, television, and the Internet. The tale is varied and interesting, replete with a stock of colorful characters such as Anthony Comstock, Mae West, Theodore Dreiser, Marcel Duchamp, Opie and Anthony, Judy Blume, Jerry Falwell, Alfred Kinsey, Hugh Hefner, and the Guerilla Girls. Covering the history of censorship of sexual ideas and images is one way of telling the story of modern America, and Semonche tells that tale with insight and flair. Despite the varieties of censorship, running from self-censorship to government bans, a common story is told. Censorship, whether undertaken to ward off government regulation, to help preserve the social order, or to protect the weak and vulnerable, proceeds on the assumption that the censor knows best and that limiting the choices of media consumers is justified. At various times all of the following groups were perceived as needing protection from sexually explicit materials: children, women, the lower classes, and foreigners. As social and political conditions changed, however, the simple fact that someone was a woman or a day laborer did not support stereotyping that person as weak or impressionable. What would remain as the only acceptable rationale for censorship of sexual materials was the protection of children and unconsenting adults. For each mode of media, Semonche explains via abundant examples how and why censorship took place in America. Censoring Sex also traces the story of how the cultural territory contested by those advocating and opposing censorship has diminished over the course of the last two centuries. Yet, Semonche argues, the censorship of sexual materials that continues in the United States poses a challenge to the free speech that is part of the f

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".

This impassioned history tells a story of censorship and politics during the early Cold War. The author recounts the 1950 Empire Zinc Strike in Bayard, New Mexico, the making of the extraordinary motion picture 'Salt of the Earth' by Local 890 of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, and the films suppression by Hollywood, federal and state governments, and organised labour. This disturbing episode reflects the intense fear that gripped America during the Cold War and reveals the unsavoury side of the rapprochement between organised labour and big business in the 1950s. In the face of intense political opposition, blackballed union activists, blacklisted Hollywood artists and writers, and Local 890 united to write a script, raise money, hire actors and crews, and make and distribute the film. Rediscovered in the 1970s, Salt of the Earth is a revealing celluloid document of socially conscious unionism that sought to break down racial barriers, bridge class divisions, and emphasise the role of women. Lorence has interviewed participants in the strike and film such as Clinton Jencks and Paul Jarrico and has consulted private and public archives to reconstruct the story of this extraordinary documentary and the co-ordinated efforts to suppress it.

In the first comprehensive picture of Soviet literary censorship, Herman Ermolaev highlights the aims of censorship and its evolution during shifts in Communinist Party policy. He draws on a great variety of primary and secondary sources, including over 200 literary works; the Soviet government's decrees on censorship and publishing; books and articles on censorship; political and historical writings; and personal correspondences with writers, editors, and a former high-ranking Glavlit official. Censorship in Soviet Literature will interest scholars of Soviet literature, politics, history, and culture and provides an excellent reference on Soviet literary censorship.

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.

Most Americans tend to view censorship as a repressive aspect of other societies or historical eras, one that touches on our lives only in relation to national security or certain cold war considerations. In this provocative history of censorship, Sue Curry Jansen challenges conventional thought with a bold new view: that censorship, an embodiment of the relationship between power and knowledge, is as much a feature of liberal, market societies as it is of totalitarianisms. Building on an analytic tradition laid out by such thinkers as Marcuse and Foucault, Jansen addresses the notion of "market censorship" and shows how the marketplace has become an arena for liberal "power-knowledge." She also analyzes Marx's critique of bourgeois censorship, examines censorship at various levels of Soviet society, and takes an incisive look at economic censorship within our own capitalist nation. The book concludes with a discussion on strategies of resistance to this powerful, and indeed universal, form of social control.

This groundbreaking two-volume set provides readers with the information they need to grasp new developments in the swiftly evolving field of media literacy. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaimed media literacy a "fundamental human right." How fitting that there is finally a definitive handbook to help students and the general public alike become better informed, more critical consumers of mass media. In these A-Z volumes, readers can learn about methodologies and assessment strategies; get information about sectors, such as community media and media activism; and explore areas of study, such as journalism, advertising, and political communications. The rapid evolution of media systems, particularly digital media, is emphasized, and writings by notable media literacy scholars are included. In addition to providing a wide range of qualitative approaches to media literacy analysis, the handbook also offers a wealth of media literacy resources. These include lists of media literacy organizations and national media literacy programs, plus relevant books, websites, videos, and articles.

Is transparency bad for science? As leading scientists question the use and abuse of freedom of information, Index looks at the data wars and the limits of scientific debate. Richard Smith calls for open access; veteran whistleblower Peter Wilmshurst questions a culture of silence; Michael Blastland considers our fear of uncertainty; Sam Geall looks at environmental cover-ups in China and Tracey Brown explains why law can be bad for your health. Index on Censorship is an award-winning magazine, devoted to protecting and promoting free expression. International in outlook, outspoken in comment, Index on Censorship reports on free expression violations around the world, publishes banned writing and shines a light on vital free expression issues through original, challenging and intelligent commentary and analysis, publishing some of the world's finest writers. Winner 2008 Amnesty International Consumer Magazine of the Year

"Manifestos For The Twenty-First Century" is a Seagull Series created in collaboration with Index On Censorship, a home and a voice for freedom of expression since it was founded in 1972. Despite Western culture's roots and much touted pride in its classical Greek and Roman legacy, the sexual freedoms of the ancient world have had no place in the official cultures of Western societies. As late as the 19th Century, homosexuality was the "love that dare not speak its name". In "Censoring Sexuality", Paul Bailey examines and analyses the various kinds of censorship - political, literary, cultural - which have oppressed and silenced homosexual men and women. Such a history of censorship extends, of course, way beyond Europe. American puritanism has hugely impacted not only on the lives but also the art works of writers and film-makers whilst the moral values of Hollywood have influenced generations. Discussing artists as diverse as Marcel Proust, Benjamin Britten, WH Auden and Terence Rattigan, Saki and Ronald Firbank, "Censoring Sexuality" explores the true nature of "camp" and the rich tradition of subversive and comic art created by the censoring of the sexual.

From Huckleberry Finn to Harry Potter, from Internet filters to the v-chip, censorship exercised on behalf of children and adolescents is often based on the assumption that they must be protected from ""indecent"" information that might harm their development - whether in art, in literature, or on a Web site. But where does this assumption come from, and is it true?In ""Not in Front of the Children"", Marjorie Heins explores the fascinating history of ""indecency"" laws and other restrictions aimed at protecting youth. From Plato's argument for rigid censorship, through Victorian laws aimed at repressing libidinous thoughts, to contemporary battles over sex education in public schools and violence in the media, Heins guides us through what became, and remains, an ideological minefield. With fascinating examples drawn from around the globe, she suggests that the ""harm to minors"" argument rests on shaky foundations.There is an urgent need for informed, dispassionate debate about the perceived conflict between the free-expression rights of young people and the widespread urge to shield them from expression that is considered harmful. ""Not in Front of the Children"" spurs this long-needed conversation.

From the earliest days of public outrage over ""indecent"" nickelodeon shows, Americans have worried about the power of the movies. The eleven essays in this book examine nearly a century of struggle over cinematic representations of sex, crime, violence, religion, race, and ethnicity, revealing that the effort to regulate the screen has reflected deep social and cultural schisms. In addition to the editor, contributors include Daniel Czitrom, Marybeth Hamilton, Garth Jowett, Charles Lyons, Richard Maltby, Charles Musser, Alison M. Parker, Charlene Regester, Ruth Vasey, and Stephen Vaughn. Together, they make it clear that censoring the movies is more than just a reflex against ""indecency,"" however defined. Whether censorship protects the vulnerable or suppresses the creative, it is part of a broader culture war that breaks out recurrently as Americans try to come to terms with the market, the state, and the plural society in which they live.

Winner of the 2020 R. Gapper Prize for the Best Book in French Studies Since the beginnings of African cinema, the realm of beauty on screen has been treated with suspicion by directors and critics alike. James S. Williams explores an exciting new generation of African directors, including Abderrahmane Sissako, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Fanta Regina Nacro, Alain Gomis, Newton I. Aduaka, Jean-Pierre Bekolo and Mati Diop, who have begun to reassess and embrace the concept of cinematic beauty by not reducing it to ideological critique or the old ideals of pan-Africanism. Locating the aesthetic within a range of critical fields - the rupturing of narrative spectacle and violence by montage, the archives of the everyday in the 'afropolis', the plurivocal mysteries of sound and language, male intimacy and desire, the borderzones of migration and transcultural drift - this study reveals the possibility for new, non-conceptual kinds of beauty in African cinema: abstract, material, migrant, erotic, convulsive, queer. Through close readings of key works such as Life on Earth (1998), The Night of Truth (2004), Bamako (2006), Daratt (Dry Season) (2006), A Screaming Man (2010), Tey (Today) (2012), The Pirogue (2012), Mille soleils (2013) and Timbuktu (2014), Williams argues that contemporary African filmmakers are proposing propitious, ethical forms of relationality and intersubjectivity. These stimulate new modes of cultural resistance and transformation that serve to redefine the transnational and the cosmopolitan as well as the very notion of the political in postcolonial art cinema.

Art is continuously subjected to insidious forms of censorship. This may be by the Church to guard against moral degeneration, by the State to promote a specific political agenda or by the art market, to elevate one artist above another. Now, and in the last century, artwork that touches on ethnic, religious, sexual, national or institutional sensitivities is liable to be destroyed or hidden away, ignored or side-lined. Drawing from new research into historical and contemporary case-studies, Censoring Art: Silencing the Artwork provides diverse ways of understanding the purpose and mechanisms of art censorship across distinct geopolitical and cultural contexts from Iran, Japan, and Uzbekistan to Britain, Ireland, Canada, Macedonia, Soviet Russia, and Cyprus. Its contributions uncover the impact of this silent control of the production and exhibition of art and consider how censorship has affected art practice and public perceptions of artworks.