Books have been censored and banned throughout history and around the world. Why? What makes a book so powerful?
Why have works of imaginative literature been banned throughout history? What is so powerful about literature to make people and governments fear it? What are the meanings that are constituted by this mode of erasure? How have these questions played out as specific historical moments in the modern and contemporary world?
Together, we will explore the global history of censorship and discuss how individual texts fit into that larger history by focusing on the political and cultural contexts that produced censorship. We will examine the political and cultural contexts of countries like the USA, Niger, Egypt, and India through 20th- and 21st-century works of fiction, graphic novel, poetry, essay, and film that have been censored or banned for reasons of political dissidence, obscenity, and blasphemy. And, we will look at the ways in which these categories intersect with questions of class, caste, race, religion, and gender.
Students from all schools and disciplines are welcome to sign up for this course. Banned Books can be used to meet the Core Curriculum goals Contemporary Challenges [CCD] and Arts and Humanities [AHo]