{"id":5502,"date":"2020-09-28T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-28T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/?p=5502"},"modified":"2020-10-11T14:03:57","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T18:03:57","slug":"banned-books-week-miscellany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/rbsc\/banned-books-week-miscellany\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting the Reader: A Banned Books Week Miscellany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our colleague Doug Archer, a longtime activist for intellectual freedom and a Freedom to Read Foundation<\/a> Roll of Honor awardee, has always used Banned Books Week as a time to raise awareness of threats to intellectual freedom. During this year’s Banned Books Week<\/a> (September 27 to October 3), since Doug is enjoying his well-earned retirement, we decided to dive into our collections and identify books whose circulation has been impeded in different times and places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this post, you will find an assortment of examples that show various types of books and the ways that they have been withheld, by government or by church, nationally or locally, in various parts of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This was the poster for our 2008 exhibit on the Index of Prohibited Books, curated by Benjamin Panciera (now Director of Special Collections and Archives at Connecticut College<\/a>). The Freedom to Read and the Care of Souls: The Index of Prohibited Books since the Enlightenment<\/em> examined how the Catholic Church sought to influence the circulation of ideas in the 19th and 20th centuries and what sort of material was considered dangerous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Galilei Galileo. Dialogo dei massimi sistemi<\/em>. Fiorenza: Per Gio: Batista Landini, 1632.
Special Collections Vault QB 41 .G1332 1642<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Index Librorum Prohibitorum<\/em>, a list compiled by the Catholic Church over a period of four centuries, consisted of a large number of books that lay Catholics were not permitted to read. Galileo’s Dialogo dei massimi sistemi [Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems]<\/em> was added to the Index<\/em> in 1634 and was not removed until 1822. In addition, Galileo was tried for heresy in 1633 and placed under house arrest, where he remained until his death almost a decade later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ulysses<\/a>
James Joyce. Ulysses<\/em>. Paris: Shakespeare and Company, 1922.
Special Collections Vault PR 6019 .O9 U4 1922<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One of the most famous pronouncements on censorship of a literary work, which occurred in the U.S., is that of Judge Woolsey on James Joyce\u2019s Ulysses.<\/em> This was widely reported in newspapers at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COURT LIFTS BAN ON \u2018ULYSSES\u2019 HERE<\/p>

Ignores Single Passages<\/p>

His Judging of Volume as a Whole, Not in Isolated Parts, Establishes a Precedent.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

James Joyce\u2019s \u201cUlysses,\u201d a novel which has been banned from the United States by custom censors on the ground that it might cause American readers to harbor \u201cimpure and lustful thoughts,\u201d found a champion yesterday in the United States District Court.<\/p>

Federal Judge John M. Woolsey, after devoting almost a month of his time to reading the book, ruled in an opinion which he filed in court that \u201cUlysses\u201d not only was not obscene in a legal sense, but that it was a work of literary merit.<\/p>New York Times, December 7, 1933.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As we have seen in the case of Galileo (above), in various places and at various times in history, censorship has not only prevented people from access to certain books, but has sometimes punished, imprisoned, or publicly shamed their authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n