Exhibition.

There is currently am interesting exhibition being held outside the Rare Books Collection, Level 1, Matheson Library, Monash University, Clayton, titled Lewd and Scandalous Books, sourced from the Rare Books department. The exhibition is being shown until the 30^th September, 2010.

Items being shown in this exhibition include erotic literature, accounts of the sexual lives of high society women and men from the 1700’s, erotic satire, books displaying human anatomy that were considered scandalous, books on pornography and prostitution and erotic illustrations.

Censorship in Australia.

I would like to begin by talking about the case of censorship in Australia. Australia has had the particular reputation for being quite strict and regimental in regards to the banning of books. In the article “Censorship and sensibility,” Jane Sullivan(10^th July 2010, p 12) exposes that customs banned over 5000 books, unbeknownst to booksellers and the general public. Sullivan points out that the list is much higher, up to 17,000 items when we consider the restriction of the release of magazines, comics, pamphlets etc. (The Age, 10^th July 2010, p 12)

Books that were banned in Australia, included George Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Down and Out in Paris and London, Lolita, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Ulysses, Catcher in the Rye and Forever Amber, just to name a few. (The Age, 10^th July 2010, p 12)

One famous case of public censoring was the 1946 case of Robert Close, whose book Love Me Sailor, was considered scandalous and he was taken to court with obscene libel. This was one of many post-war cases against artists and authors. (The Age, 10^th July 2010, p 12) Professor Jenny Hocking (The Age, 10^th July 2010, p 12)points out that “one of the great dangers of the use of law is that it will create an environment of cultural timidity and aesthetic restraint that’s unhealthy for society. And that remains the case today.”(The Age, 10^th July 2010, p 12)

Through the 1960’s and 1970’s attitudes became more liberal with people speaking up about their rights to choose what they should read in Australia. Censorship laws were loosened and there have been no books banned since 1973…until now. Recently there have been certain books about terrorism and euthanasia that have been banned. These books, Defense of the Muslim Lands, Join the Caravan and The Peaceful Pill Handbook are available online. These books have been banned due to the wave of underlying fear that pervades the world now, after the spate of terrorist attacks, namely the September 11 attack in New York. (The Age, 10^th July 2010, p 12-13)

The internet is the new battleground for issues of censorship. The tangible has become intangible in the sense that books that have been banned, in countries such as Australia can be accessed from anywhere in the world onto a home computer. How will this change the way books are censored, banned or destroyed in the future? (The Age, 10^th July 2010, p 13) I will come back to this issue in further posts, but first I will give you a brief history of the censorship and the destruction of books and libraries.

References:

Sullivan, J 2010, ‘Censorship and sensibility’, The Age, 10 July, A2, p12-13.

Introduction.

What is it about a few pages of paper bearing the inscriptions of its writer that can cause such controversy? Censorship and the destruction of books has a long and torrid history. Through research I aim to discover the history of book banning and censorship and the reasons why books are the victims of such destruction. What are the agendas fuelling the destruction of books? What effects does this have on a community?


In my current stage of reading I have come to the opinion that censorship and book banning and/or destruction can run down two different pathways of thought. In one sense books are censored and banned because their content is considered too sexually scandalous or erotic. Themes of sexuality, anatomy, violence and supernatural content have caused outrage within society in various eras. Fear that the minds of readers will be corrupted by reading certain literature is one of the agendas behind censorship coupled with the fear that readers will turn to immoral behaviours through the influence of reading certain texts. A recent example of this is with the Harry Potter books, with religious groups in America banning the Harry Potter series as they were fearful the series of books about a boy wizard would encourage an unhealthy interest in paganism and witchcraft amongst children.

On the other hand we have the destruction of whole collections of books relating to a specific culture. This form of censorship and book banning aims to obliterate an entire section of a community/country for racial and/or religious reasons. It is a form of domination and control by keeping groups of people uneducated about their cultural history, in order to eventually destroy this particular group. By erasing a culture’s traditions, beliefs and memories, power and knowledge are diminished. There have been many incidences of the pillaging of books relating to a specific culture in the past that was the forewarning for much more severe atrocities. One example we can look to is the Holocaust, wherein the Nazi authorities pillaged several libraries and burned, willfully lost or destroyed over 20 million books. These acts of cultural destruction and relocation were a prelude to the propaganda campaign against the Jewish community and eventually the mass murders of millions of Jews in World War Two in the 1940’s.



References

Fishburn, M 2008, Burning Books, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, New York.

Knuth, R 2003, Libricide: The regime-sponsored destruction of books and libraries in the twentieth century, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut.

Sullivan, J 2010, ‘Censorship and sensibility’, The Age, 10 July, A2, p12-13. (N.B: article written corresponded with the Monash Rare Books ‘Lewd and Scandalous Books’ exhibition 14 July-30 September, 2010 and the Conferences held at the Wheeler Centre Auditorium.)