{"id":96760,"date":"2014-09-25T09:16:19","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T13:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=96760"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:11:36","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:11:36","slug":"old-story-new-plot-a-look-at-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/09\/old-story-new-plot-a-look-at-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Story, New Plot: A Look at Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"banned140924a012\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Concerned citizens across the nation are marking the American Library Association\u2019s annual Banned Books Week, Sept. 21-27. Suzy Staubach, manager of general books at the UConn Co-op bookstore, notes that the age-old, world-wide issue of censorship is taking on new forms in the current economic and cultural context.<\/em><\/p>\n

In recent weeks, examples of censorship have cropped up around the globe. Russia\u2019s Parliament moved to gain control of the media by taking steps to require non state-owned publications, such as the nation\u2019s edition of \u201cForbes\u201d to become Russian owned and thus less critical of the government. The Chinese government sentenced a prominent scholar to life in prison to silence him and prevent him from posting essays about the status of the Uyghurs on his website. It is a time-tested tactic. Throughout the millennia, governments have exercised censorship as a way to control the populace and maintain power.<\/p>\n

But today, in the 21st century, we are encountering a form of censorship as a tool of economic power. Even in the U.S., where the First Amendment protects our freedom of expression and freedom of information, censorship is an issue. Since last spring Amazon, considered by many a monopsony, has stopped selling books by the publishing company Hachette over a dispute over the price of e-books, a tactic it used against Macmillan Publishers a couple of years ago.\u00a0Now many Hachette writers are angry and pressuring Amazon by taking their anger to the reading public, which could threaten the company\u2019s own economic power.<\/p>\n

And the economic tactic does not always work. When Alison Bechdel\u2019s award-winning graphic novel \u201cFun Home\u201d was included on the summer reading list for incoming freshmen at the College of Charleston, the South Carolina House of Representatives voted to cut funding for the school. Fortunately, the college did not remove the book, despite congressional pressure. \u201cIt’s sad and absurd that the College of Charleston is facing a funding cut for teaching my book — a book which is after all about the toll that this sort of small-mindedness takes on people’s lives,” Bechdel told \u201cPublisher\u2019s Weekly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other books challenged this year include \u201cBrave New World\u201d by Aldous Huxley, \u201cOf Mice and Men\u201d by John Steinbeck and \u201cNative Son\u201d by Richard Wright, which the school board in Baxley, Ga., removed from its school system after a church minister objected to it. The Blue Valley School District in Kansas has petitioned for 13 books to be removed from their schools including \u201cOne Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest\u201d by Ken Kesey, and \u201cAnimal Dreams\u201d and \u201cThe Bean Trees,\u201d both by Barbara Kingsolver.<\/p>\n

For the past two years, the children\u2019s series \u201cCaptain Underpants\u201d by Dav Pilkey has topped the Office for Intellectual Freedom\u2019s list of the 10 most challenged books. Pilkey, who has been a guest of the UConn Co-op, has made a YouTube video in response.<\/p>\n

In addition to having a display of challenged books, the UConn Co-op bookstore at Storrs Center is again participating in the nationwide \u201cVirtual Read Out,\u201d sponsored by the American Booksellers Association, American Library Association, American Society of Journalists and Authors, American Booksellers Foundation for Freedom of Expression, and the National Coalition Against Censorship, among others.<\/p>\n

Students and faculty are invited to stop by the bookstore and read a minute or two from a book that has been challenged. A video of the reading will be included on the \u201cVirtual Read Out\u201d Channel on YouTube. Last year, President Susan Herbst read from \u201cPersepolis,\u201d which was challenged in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Books are usually challenged by well-intentioned people who find the titles and content offensive or harmful. However, citizens are equally able to choose what to write or read. And, where to spend their money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suzy Staubach, general books manager at the UConn Co-op, writes about the latest censorship tactic on the occasion of Banned Books Week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":96772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[175],"class_list":["post-96760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 05:19:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96760"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96774,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96760\/revisions\/96774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/96772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96760"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=96760"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=96760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}