BANNED IN AMERICA
A brief overview of Suppression, Challenging, Censorship, & Banning
Overview
Book banning is a form of censorship that occurs when private individuals, government officials, or organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists, or bookstore shelves because they object to their content, ideas, or themes. Book banning is the most widespread form of censorship in the United States. A Challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials based on the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. Censorship is a change in the access status of material based on the content of the work and made by a governing authority or its representatives. Such changes include exclusion, restriction, removal, or age/grade level changes. Changes may also include changing specific passages in literature, scenes in a film, or lyrics in music. Intellectual Freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any side of a question, cause or movement may be explored.
INDIANA STATE UNIVERSITY: https://library.indianastate.edu/c.php?g=1345084
Suggested Reading
The editors of DK Books
The American Library Association
1. Some Definitions
- Vocabulary.com: https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/censorship
- The OED: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/censorship
- The ACLU: “What is Censorship?”: https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship
- Distinctions: https://library.auraria.edu/staff-picks/challenged-and-banned-books
- Distinctions: https://library.bu.edu/banned/intro
2. A Brief History of Censorship
• The Encyclopedia Britannica’s extensive entry on censorship is an excellent overview: https://www.britannica.com/topic/censorship• The Huffington Post presented an excellent “summary” article on Art Censorship in 2014: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/16/art-censorship_n_6465010.html• The Book and Periodical Council of Canada maintains a site called Freedom to Read. This link gives a brief overview of “Bannings and Burnings” in History: http://www.freedomtoread.ca/links-and-resources/bannings-and-burnings-in-history/#.WYz7cTOGPIV• The National Coalition Against Censorship provides this brief overview of censorship in the film industry: http://ncac.org/resource/a-brief-history-of-film-censorship• European History Online: The history of censorship of printed materials in Europe; a well-documented 2013 entry: http://ieg-ego.eu/en/threads/european-media/censorship-and-freedom-of-the-press• An overview of censorship in music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_censorship• Censorship in the Soviet Union: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_Soviet_Union• The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provides this article about censorship in Nazi Germany: https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007677
3. Ancient Examples: Horemheb and Ramses II
• Horemheb (1306--1292 BCE) was the last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from either 1319 BC to late 1292 BC, or 1306 to late 1292 BC (since he ruled for 14 years) although he was not related to the preceding royal family and is believed to have been of common birth. Before he became pharaoh, Horemheb was the commander in chief of the army under the reigns of Tutankhamun and Ay. After his accession to the throne, he reformed the Egyptian state and it was under his reign that official action against the preceding Amarna rulers began. Due to this, he is considered the man who restabilized his country after the troublesome and divisive Amarna Period. Horemheb demolished monuments of Akhenaten, reusing their remains in his own building projects, and usurped monuments of Tutankhamun and Ay. Horemheb presumably remained childless since he appointed his vizier Paramesse as his successor, who would assume the throne as Ramesses I.• Ramses II (1279--1213 BCE) was the pharaoh most responsible for erasing the Amarna Period from history. He, more than any other pharaoh, sought deliberately to deface the Amarna monuments and change the nature of the religious structure and the structure of the priesthood, in order to try to bring it back to where it had been prior to the reign of Akhenaten. The Amarna Period was an era of Egyptian history during the latter half of the Eighteenth Dynasty when the royal residence of the pharaoh and his queen was shifted to Akhetaten ('Horizon of the Aten') in what is now Amarna. It was marked by the reign of Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten (1353–1336 BC) in order to reflect the dramatic change of Egypt's polytheistic religion into one where the sun disc Aten was worshipped over all other gods. Aten was not solely worshipped (the religion was not monotheistic), but the other gods were worshipped to a significantly lesser degree. The Egyptian pantheon of the equality of all gods and goddesses was restored under Akhenaten's successor, Tutankhamun.
4. Censorship in America
• THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. There are links to the lists that go back to “Before 1990”: https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10# • THOUGH CO. provides an interesting overview of a dozen examples of censorship in the Arts as well as links to more extensive lists for specific industries like television: https://www.thoughtco.com/censorship-in-the-united-states-721221• The ACLU provides links to dozens of articles focusing on specific examples of censorship across a broad range of topics, including censorship on the Internet: https://www.aclu.org/search/Censorship• The History Channel provides this overview of “The Hollywood Black List”: http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/hollywood-ten
5. An Early American Example: William Pynchon
• In 1649, William Pynchon found time to write a critique of his place and times' dominant religious doctrine, Puritanical Calvinism, entitled The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption. Published in London in 1650, it quickly reached Boston and caused a sensation. Pynchon was one of Massachusetts' wealthiest and most important men, and in his book — which confounded Puritan theology by claiming that obedience, rather than punishment and suffering, was the price of atonement — was immediately burned on the Boston Common (only 4 copies survived), and soon after became the New World's first-ever banned book. Officials of the Massachusetts Bay Colony formally accused Pynchon of heresy and demanded that he retract its argument. Coincidentally, Pynchon's court date took place on the same day and at the same place that the New World's first witch trial — that of Hugh and Mary Parsons of Springfield — took place. Instead of retracting his arguments, Pynchon stealthily transferred his land holdings to his son John — who later became an equally large influence in Springfield — while William Pynchon returned to England in 1652, where he remained for the rest of his life. He died in Wraysbury, then in Buckinghamshire in England in 1662, and was buried there at St Andrew's Church.• Early instances of works being "banned in Boston" extend back at least to the year 1651. That year, William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts—Massachusetts' great settlement in the Connecticut River Valley—and the former treasurer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wrote a book criticizing Puritanism entitled, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption. Boston, founded by Puritans and, at that time, ruled as a de jure theocracy, banned Pynchon's book and pressed him to return to England. He did so in 1652, which nearly caused Springfield to align with the nearby Connecticut Colony.
See: Wikipedia, Britannica
6. Recent and Ongoing Examples:
• The website for Banned Books Week provides a list of important books both new and old that remain banned around America: https://bannedbooksweek.org/ • Wikipedia’s current entry on Book Censorship in America is nicely documented and provides links to articles about specific texts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_censorship_in_the_United_States• Culture Wars: https://magazine.howard.edu/stories/casualty-of-the-culture-war • Culture Wars: https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2023/10/26/rise-book-banning-stems-culture-war-experts-say• Culture Wars: https://abcnews.go.com/US/school-culture-wars-push-students-form-banned-book/story?id=103377259
7. Banned Books and Censorship: Video Resources
• Washington Post Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_lUswcHCnI • PBS NewsHour/Judy Blume: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q51jT_qam_I • ABC News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH-USG9-cyg • Banned Books Week website. Authors speak about banning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m51PXru3pug• Sherman Alexie on Book Banning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkU13p9mHGI• John Green on the banning of LOOKING FOR ALASKA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69rd-7vEF3s&t=25s• CBS NEWS report on Banned Books: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyDcw8rkNp8
8. Authors Speak Out (A Sampling of YouTube Videos):
- George M. Johnson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9J2qRsbm4o
- John Green: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69rd-7vEF3s&t=56s
- Sherman Alexie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkU13p9mHGI
- Rupi Kaur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnB5_vOgRSg
- Art Spiegelman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BmjCDoIyV0
- Various LGBTQ+ Writers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDppHAzyFew
9. Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian
• “Fahrenheit 451 is an indictment of censorship and expurgation, so the fact that this book was expurgated and marketed by the publisher that way for 13 years before the author became aware of the abuse is particularly ironic. In 1967, Ballantine Books published a special edition of the novel to be sold in high schools. Over 75 passages were modified to eliminate such words as hell, damn, and abortion, and two incidents were eliminated. The original first incident described a drunk man who was changed to a sick man in the expurgated edition. In the second incident, reference is made to cleaning fluff out of the human navel, but the expurgated edition changed the reference to cleaning ears.” This edition was published through 1979; neither Bradbury nor anyone else suspected the truth. In 1979, Bradbury was alerted and he demanded that Ballantine withdraw the expurgated edition immediately and replace it with the original. The publisher agreed and the original, unexpurgated edition was published in 1980. This act of censorship “set in motion the American Library Association Intellectual Freedom Committee, Young Adult Division.” Among other things, the Committee warned school book clubs like Scholastic that it would strip away the “ALA Best Book” announcement from all expurgated books. The ALA also alerted teacher groups to demand that an expurgated book in a school book club be “clearly identified on the copyright page as an ‘edited school book edition’.” In a coda that now appears in editions of Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury states, “I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.” © Nicholas Karolides, et al. 120 Banned Books. Page 488.• There are more than 160 swear words in Andy Weir’s sci-fi thriller, The Martian, including two memorably deployed F-words in the novel’s first three sentences. The profanity did not strike Mr. Weir as excessive when he wrote the book nearly a decade ago. After all, the story’s narrator, an astronaut named Mark Watney, is stranded alone on Mars with a dwindling supply of food and a rescue mission that is four years away — circumstances that warrant constant cursing. But shortly after the book came out, Mr. Weir started hearing from a subset of readers who objected to the obscenities. “I got a lot of emails from science teachers who said, ‘Man I’d love to use your book as a teaching aid, but there’s so much profanity in it that we can’t really do that,’” said Mr. Weir, 44, who is cheerful, hyper-analytical and casually profane, much like his protagonist. “It’s hard to get that by a school board.” Apart from the four-letter words, The Martian is a science teacher’s dream text. It’s a gripping survival story that hinges on the hero’s ability to solve a series of complex problems, using his knowledge of physics, chemistry, astronomy and math, in order to stay alive on a hostile planet. After getting dozens of inquiries from teachers, Mr. Weir, who describes himself as “a lifelong space nerd,” asked his publisher, Crown, if they could release a cleaned-up edition of the book. The novel was pretty easy to amend, by simply replacing the foul language with tamer words like “screwed,” “jerk” and “crap” (Mr. Weir said there were “occasional squabbles” when he tried to lobby the censors to keep some of the less offensive swear words in.) A kid-friendly version came out last year, and it is now being used to help teach science in classrooms around the country. © Alexandra Alter. New York Times. Business Day Section. 24 Feb, 2017.
10. Film and Television Adaptations:
• Lionel Shriver, the author of the award-winning novel We Need To Talk About Kevin has said: “When you sell a book it is a gamble; you take the risk that someone will take your work and turn it into something you're ashamed of.” Indeed, when writers sell the rights to their literary creations (such as novels) to movie studios, producers, and/or directors, their work can be changed at will unless there are very explicit conditions in the contract. Even then, censorship can take place. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/hollywood-ate-my-novel-novelists-reveal-what-it-s-like-to-have-their-book-turned-into-a-movie-6940772.html• Meanwhile, Gary Whitta, who has worked in Hollywood for nearly 20 years, has that if experience has taught him anything, it’s that screenwriters don’t have much control over the final product. “Oftentimes when you work on a movie, it gets all bent and pushed and pulled out of shape by the various people on the film who are more powerful than you,” Whitta says . . . . “Because everyone on a film is more powerful than the writer.” Fresh ideas face an uphill battle in Hollywood. At first Warner Bros. was enamored with the edginess of Whitta’s script for The Book of Eli, a post-apocalyptic thriller with religious overtones. But when push came to shove, the studio balked. https://www.wired.com/2015/08/geeks-guide-gary-whitta/
11. Food For Thought (Ideas to Ponder):
• There always has been and always will be censorship.• Is this true? “Fear is the root of all censorship.”• “Us” and/or “Them” is often the universal language of censorship.• Who has the right to determine when “a line has been crossed”?• When “we” decide that “they” are promoting “hate,” who decides the definition of “hate”? One culture’s “hate” is another culture’s “norm.”• Is there such a thing as too much “political correctness”?• Censoring censorship can be a form of censorship. EXAMPLES: “We” don’t like “them” censoring books, so “we” will prevent “them” from doing so because “they” are [fill in blank] and “we” are [fill in blank]. <OR> “They” use speech (art, music, etc.) that promotes [fill in some form of “crime”]; we must prevent that.