Banned Books Week - 2008
From September 27th through October 4th, 2008, libraries all across the country will be celebrating Banned Books Week. This is a week in which we recognize our freedom to read and we remind Americans not to take this freedom for granted.
"Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met."
The USF Library Archives' John L. Raymond Special Collection and Rare Books Collection both include a number of books that have been banned or challenged throughout history:
Stories from the Arabian Nights - retold by Laurence Housman (398 A658h)
-Banned, along with Aristophenes' Lysistrata, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's Decameron, and Defoe's Moll Flanders, from U.S. mail under the Comstock Law of 1873. This law banned the mailing of "lewd", "indecent", "filthy", or "obscene" materials.
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman (811.38 W614p)
-Was withdrawn in Boston in 1881, after the District Attorney threatened criminal prosecution for the use of explicit language in some poems.
The Call of the Wild - Jack London (813 L824cp)
-Censored in several European dictatorships in the 1920s and 1930s for being "too radical."
Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (823.79 S546fp)
-Banned by South Africa's apartheid regime for being "indecent, objectionable, or obscene."
The Bible
-Removed from numerous libraries and banned from import in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1956. Many editions of the Bible have also been banned and burned by civil and religious authorities throughout history: Singapore, 1996; Burma (Myanmar), 2000; Saudi Arabia.
Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare (822.33)
-In 1818 Thomas Bowdler published the "Family Shakespeare" omitting "those words and expressions which cannot with propriety be read aloud in the family." "Bowdlerize" became the term for "cleaning up."
-In 1999, a teacher at Windsor Forest High School required seniors to have permission slips signed before they could read Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear, citing "adult language" and references to sex and violence.
-In 1996, Twelfth Night was pulled from the curriculum in Merrimack, NH after the school board passed a "prohibition of alternative lifestyles instruction" act.
-The Merchant of Venice was banned in Midland, MI classrooms in 1980 and Buffalo and Manchester, NY schools in the 1930s for the way it portrayed the Jewish character Shylock.
Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe - George Eliot (823.88 E423sl)
-Banned in 1978 by the Anaheim (California) Union High School District as scandalous and dangerous.
The Odyssey - Homer (883.1 H766l)
-In 387 B.C. Greece, Plato suggested cleaning up Homer's work for the immature readers. In 35 A.D. Rome, Caligula tried to suppress The Odyssey because it expressed Greek ideals of freedom which were considered dangerous in the dictatorial Rome.
Come visit the USF Library and the USF Library Archives Reading Room and show your support of this precious freedom.
Sources: American Library Association, Banned Books Online, The File Room
"Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met."
-American Library Association
The USF Library Archives' John L. Raymond Special Collection and Rare Books Collection both include a number of books that have been banned or challenged throughout history:
Stories from the Arabian Nights - retold by Laurence Housman (398 A658h)
-Banned, along with Aristophenes' Lysistrata, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's Decameron, and Defoe's Moll Flanders, from U.S. mail under the Comstock Law of 1873. This law banned the mailing of "lewd", "indecent", "filthy", or "obscene" materials.
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman (811.38 W614p)
-Was withdrawn in Boston in 1881, after the District Attorney threatened criminal prosecution for the use of explicit language in some poems.
The Call of the Wild - Jack London (813 L824cp)
-Censored in several European dictatorships in the 1920s and 1930s for being "too radical."
Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (823.79 S546fp)
-Banned by South Africa's apartheid regime for being "indecent, objectionable, or obscene."
The Bible
-Removed from numerous libraries and banned from import in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1956. Many editions of the Bible have also been banned and burned by civil and religious authorities throughout history: Singapore, 1996; Burma (Myanmar), 2000; Saudi Arabia.
Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare (822.33)
-In 1818 Thomas Bowdler published the "Family Shakespeare" omitting "those words and expressions which cannot with propriety be read aloud in the family." "Bowdlerize" became the term for "cleaning up."
-In 1999, a teacher at Windsor Forest High School required seniors to have permission slips signed before they could read Hamlet, Macbeth, or King Lear, citing "adult language" and references to sex and violence.
-In 1996, Twelfth Night was pulled from the curriculum in Merrimack, NH after the school board passed a "prohibition of alternative lifestyles instruction" act.
-The Merchant of Venice was banned in Midland, MI classrooms in 1980 and Buffalo and Manchester, NY schools in the 1930s for the way it portrayed the Jewish character Shylock.
Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe - George Eliot (823.88 E423sl)
-Banned in 1978 by the Anaheim (California) Union High School District as scandalous and dangerous.
The Odyssey - Homer (883.1 H766l)
-In 387 B.C. Greece, Plato suggested cleaning up Homer's work for the immature readers. In 35 A.D. Rome, Caligula tried to suppress The Odyssey because it expressed Greek ideals of freedom which were considered dangerous in the dictatorial Rome.
Come visit the USF Library and the USF Library Archives Reading Room and show your support of this precious freedom.
Sources: American Library Association, Banned Books Online, The File Room
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