“Baker’s brave defense of her community’s right to read is a testament to the vital role librarians play in upholding free speech and creative expression in the face of censorship.”
Librarians in several states can now be jailed for years for making “pornography” available. Let’s be clear about intent here - it is to limit descriptions of the lives of LGBTQ people, where possible down to the level that we even exist. @bookstodon#bookstodon#lgbtq#books#censorship#libraries#librarians
“The most challenged books in the United States in 2023 continued to focus on the experiences of L.G.B.T.Q. people or explore themes of race…”
Time to buy these books, and/or request your public library purchase if they don’t have them. #bookstodon#books#libraries#censorship#race#lgbtq@bookstodon
Today in Labor History March 25, 1957: U.S. Customs seized copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" on obscenity grounds. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and City Lights manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, were arrested on obscenity charges for publishing and distributing the poem. Howl was inspired, in part, by a terrifying peyote vision Ginsberg had in which the façade of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, in San Francisco, appeared as the monstrous face of a child-eating demon. The obscenity charges stemmed from homophobic responses to his explicit references to homosexuality. Ginsberg’s first experience with LSD, as well as Kerouac’s and Burroughs’s, was with acid provided by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson, one-time husband of and long-time collaborator with Margaret Mead.
“Librarians are being harassed in private Facebook groups. They’re receiving pressure from within and outside the school.”
But bookstores, libraries and book lovers of all kinds came together to fight back against the censorious, so-called READER act. From correspondent Matthew Patin: https://www.texasobserver.org/the-booksellers-revolt/
You Can't Read This Book: Censorship in an Age of Freedom by Nick Cohen
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism, and the advent of the Web which allowed for even the smallest voice to be heard, everywhere you turned you were told that we were living in an age of unparalleled freedom.
Today in Labor History February 26, 1894: In France, Jean Grave was charged and sentenced to two years in prison for publishing the book “La société mourante et l'anarchie.” However, the trial only served to popularize the book, which was quickly translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Yiddish. Voltairine De Cleyre produced an English translation in 1899. Novelist Octave Mirbeau (“Torture Garden” and “Diary of a Chambermaid”) wrote the preface. Grave was born on October 16, 1854 and died in 1939. He was active in the international anarchist communism movement and was editor Le Révolté, La Révolte and Les Temps Nouveaux, and a number of important anarchist books.
News from #hugoawards#chengdu#censorship scandal:
"WIP officials announced that director Dave McCarty and board chair Kevin Standlee have resigned " The linked article also gives an overview on the developments that led to the resignation.
An inspired blend of memoir and literary criticism, Reading Lolita in Tehran is a moving testament to the power of art and its ability to change and improve people's lives.
The Librarian of Burned Books is a captivating WWII-era novel about the intertwined fates of three women who believe in the power of books to triumph over the very darkest moments of war.
Throughout the 24 lectures of Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works, author and book critic Professor Maureen Corrigan of Georgetown University will take you on a tour of some of the most challenged and controversial works of literature, from the plays of Shakespeare to 21st-century best-sellers—even including the dictionary and classic fairy tales.
The World's Most Controversial Books, Past and Present
Banned Books explores why some of the world's most important literary classics and seminal non-fiction titles were once deemed too controversial for the public to read - whether for challenging racial or sexual norms, satirizing public figures, or simply being deemed unfit for young readers.
120 Banned Books
Censorship Histories of World Literature
Tracing the censorship histories of 120 works from around the world, this volume--expanded from 100 Banned Books--provides a summary of each work, its censorship history and suggestions for further reading.
This book covers the history and evolution of censorship and its role in society today. Covering all forms of expression from the past to the present, from the office of the censor in ancient Rome to the Internet in the computer age, this A-Z reference examines censorship.
Offering a potted history of censorship from the execution of Socrates in 399BC to the latest in internet filtering, Petley also explains how today's media monopolies and moguls censor by limiting what news/entertainment they impart. Julian Petley is professor of Film and Television at Brunel University, UK. He is the author of several books on censorship.
Censorship has been an ongoing phenomenon even in "the land of the free." This examination of banned books across U.S. history examines the motivations and effects of censorship, shows us how our view of right and wrong has evolved over the years, and helps readers to understand the tremendous importance of books and films in our society.
In #chismes from the world of #books. The more details revealed about it, not that there are that many given the awards people are just not really talking, the worse it looks.
>Science fiction awards held in China under fire for excluding authors
📖 Revising the paradigm proposed by Foucault, Massimo Asta published a paper in the journal Studi storici on the censorship exercised by fascist regimes on political prisoners.
PS: It turns out to be a myth that Victorians covered piano legs for the sake of modesty. But one day people will hear that Floridians removed dictionaries from school libraries for the sake of modesty, or prudery, or protecting the children, and wonder whether it's a myth. The truth will be out there, but not in Florida libraries.
Sometimes censorship is so inane that it looks like self-parody.
A world where we only have #books that everyone approves is a world where we have no books at all. We need to trust professional librarians to make the best decisions, even when we don't always agree.
Today in Labor History January 11, 1804: The Sussex Examiner reported that the English authorities tried poet & painter William Blake for saying “Damn the king and damn his soldiers.” Blake was both religious and hostile to the Church & organized religion. His poetry often embodied rebellion against class power. He disdained the blighting and impoverishing effects of the Industrial Revolution. He despised slavery and was a proponent of free love. Some consider him an early proponent of what would later be called anarchism.