Undergraduate Course: Censorship (ENLI10357)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | John Milton's 'Areopagitica' (1644) describes two forms of censorship: pre-publication censorship, which Milton rejects as incompatible with English liberty; and destruction of the book after publication, which he holds compatible with English justice. This course studies the ways in which censorship, pre- and post-publication, has been enforced, resisted, and accepted from the seventeenth century to the present day. The operation of the censor is apparent in the prosecution of authors, publishers and booksellers for blasphemy, sedition, and obscenity; but censorship operates just as effectively through editorial intervention and the quiet rejection of offending texts by libraries and bookshops. We will learn about the economic, social, and legal pressures to which writers and publishers are subject, considering how the threat of censorship influences the formation, production, and reception of literature. We will read a range of texts that have provoked official and unofficial censorship, and texts that articulate and challenge the position of the censor. Throughout the course, we will analyse censorship¿s construction of vulnerable readers, who, like Don Quixote, the hero of the first novel, become that which they read.
This course will run in the Centre for Research Collections in the University of Edinburgh¿s Main Library, where students will have the opportunity to examine rare books that have been subject to censorship or were published with the intention of challenging censorship. We will discuss the material properties of texts and learn how censorship operates at various points in the lifecycle of the text, particularly with regard to the production, distribution and reception of literary works.
In this course we will be discussing content that may be traumatising to some students. We believe in the importance of engaging with this material and so please rest assured that we will work with you to ensure you can participate fully and demonstrate your achievement of the learning outcomes of the course, without compromising your wellbeing or your academic development. If you have concerns at any point we invite you to approach the course organiser Dr Katherine Inglis (k.inglis@ed.ac.uk) to discuss how we can best support you in your work on this course. We affirm that you will be treated with dignity and respect in all discussions and at every stage of the course. |
| Course description |
WEEK 1 Introduction to censorship: the liberty of the press and vulnerable readers
John Milton, 'Areopagitica' (1644) (via Learn).
Extracts from Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605; 1612); Mary Elizabeth Braddon, The Doctor's Wife (1864); George Moore, A Mummer's Wife (1885). (via Learn).
WEEK 2 Self-censorship.
Frances Burney, The Witlings, in Frances Burney, The Witlings and the Woman Hater (Broadview, 2002)
Students to select reading for Week 12.
WEEK 3 Blasphemy and radical publishing.
Percy Bysse Shelley, 'Queen Mab' (1813; 1821, Carlile edition) (via Learn).
WEEK 4 Obscenity in Translation.
Émile Zola, La Terre [The Earth] (1887), trans. Nelson and Rose (Oxford, 2016).
Extracts from Émile Zola, The Soil (London: Vizetelly, 1888); [Henry Vizetelly], Extracts Principally from English Classics: Showing that the Legal Suppression of M. Zola's Novels Would Logically Involve the Bowdlerizing of Some of the Greatest Works in English Literature (London: [Vizetelly], 1888); Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Vol 1. (1978) (via Learn).
WEEK 5 The Lord Chamberlain's office.
George Bernard Shaw, Mrs Warren's Profession (1893; Norton 9th edn)
Harley Granville Barker, Waste (1926 revision; Granville Barker, Plays: One, Methuen, 1993).
Extract from Dominic Shellard and Steve Nicholson. The Lord Chamberlain Regrets: A History of British Theatre Censorship. (2004). 3-11. (via Learn)
WEEK 6 NO CLASS - Flexible Learning Week
WEEK 7 'Inversion': Obscenity in the UK, Literature in the US
Extract from Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1928) (via Learn)
UK obscenity proceedings (via Héritage Canadiana online)
US obscenity proceedings (via Héritage Canadiana online)
WEEK 8 Establishing Literary Merit: Obscenity after the Obscene Publications Act 1959
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928; 1960; Penguin, 2010).
Obscene Publications Act, 1959. (via Learn)
Extract from C.H. Rolph, ed., The Trial of Lady Chatterley: Regina v. Penguin Books Limited. (1961) (via Learn)
WEEK 9 NO CLASS : ESSAY COMPLETION
WEEK 10 Remembering Black History
Extract from Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, ed. Sara Salih (1831; Penguin, 2004) (via Learn)
Extract from Etheridge Knight, ed. Black Voices from Prison (1970) (via Learn)
Toni Morrison, 'The Site of Memory' (1995) (via Learn)
WEEK 11 Remembering Dissidence
Ma Jian, Beijing Coma (Vintage, 2009)
Pierre Bourdieu. 'Censorship and the Imposition of Form', in Language and Symbolic Power. (1991). 137-59. (via Learn)
WEEK 12 The Vulnerable Reader 3: Children and Young Adults.
One text, chosen by students in Week 2, from the American Library Association's list of the most frequently challenged and banned books in American public libraries. In recent years these have included Beloved, Persepolis, and The Hunger Games trilogy. Our focus shifts from the UK to the US not because censorship is necessarily more prevalent in US public libraries than in the UK, but because the ALA's reporting system quantifies censorship and makes it visible.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | A MINIMUM of three college/university level literature courses at grade B or above (should include no more than one introductory level literature course). Related courses such as civilisation or creative writing are not considered for admissions to this course. Applicants should also note that, as with other popular courses, meeting the minimum does NOT guarantee admission. In making admissions decisions preference will be given to students who achieve above the minimum requirement with the typical visiting student admitted to this course having three to four literature classes at grade A. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2019/20, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 15 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Other Study Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
166 )
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| Additional Information (Learning and Teaching) |
Plus one hour per week autonomous learning
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One course essay of 2,500 words (30%)
One class participation assessment (10%)
One time-limited final essay of 3,000 words (60%) |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- By the end of this course, students will be able to: - understand the legislative, economic and cultural contexts of censorship;
- - discuss the relationship between literary production and censorship, primarily in relation to British fiction, poetry and prose;
- - articulate how censorship operates prior to publication, during the publication process, and after publication;
- - analyse the impact of censorship on historical and contemporary ideas of the reader.
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Reading List
Indicative Bibliography: the full Bibliography is on the Resource List for the course:
https://eu01.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/leganto/readinglist/searchlists/18388064990002466
Brantlinger, Patrick, The Reading Lesson: The Threat of Mass Literacy in Nineteenth-Century British Fiction (Indiana UP, 1998).
Fellion, Matthew, and Katherine Inglis, Censored: A Literary History of Subversion and Control (London: British Library, 2017).
Flint, Kate, The Woman Reader 1837-1914. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
Griest, Guinevere L., Mudie's Circulating Library and the Victorian Novel (Bloomington: Indiana UP,1970).
Heath, Deana, 'Obscenity, Censorship and Modernity', in A Companion to the History of the Book, ed. Simon Eliot and Jonathan Rose, (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), pp. 508-519.
Hunter, Ian, David Saunders and Dugald Williamson, On Pornography: Literature, Sexuality and Obscenity Law (New York: St Martin's, 1993).
Hyland, Paul, and Neil Sammells (eds.), Writing and Censorship in Britain (London: Routledge, 1992).
Nash, David, ed. Blasphemy in Britain and America, 1800-1930. (Pickering & Chatto, 2010).
Pease, Allison, Modernism, Mass Culture, and the Aesthetics of Obscenity (CUP, 2000).
Shellard, Dominic and Steve Nicholson, The Lord Chamberlain Regrets...: A History of British Theatre Censorship (London: British Library, 2004). |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Katherine Inglis
Tel: (0131 6)50 3617
Email: K.Inglis@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms June Cahongo
Tel: (0131 6)50 3620
Email: J.Cahongo@ed.ac.uk |
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