CNX 225 Banned Books and Jailed Writers

Jon Stone Associate Professor of Russian

Chair, Comparative Literary Studies jon.stone@fandm.edu

Be an effective speaker and listener, which includes articulating your own views clearly, actively listening to those articulated by others, engaging thoughtfully with different perspectives, and practicing respectful academic discourse that includes supporting an argument with evidence.

Connections Curriculum Goals

“[The humanities] is pursuing an ongoing inquiry into the limits of inquiry. And it is not just asking questions about knowledge; it is creating knowledge by asking the questions. Skepticism about the forms of knowledge is itself a form of knowledge.”

Louis Menand, The Marketplace of Ideas

Political grounds

Religious grounds

Moral grounds

Social grounds

The Da Vinci Code

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Madame Bovary

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Lolita

1984

All Quiet on the Western Front

Of Mice and Men

Twilight Series

Political grounds

Religious grounds

Moral grounds

Social grounds

The Da Vinci Code ✔

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ✔

Madame Bovary ✔

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ✔

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ✔

Lolita ✔

1984 ✔

All Quiet on the Western Front ✔

Of Mice and Men ✔

Twilight Series ✔

It seems, then, that if a man, who through clever training can become anything and imitate anything, should arrive in our city, wanting to give a performance of his poems, we should bow down before him as someone holy, wonderful, and pleasing, but we should tell him that there is no one like him in our city and that it isn't lawful for there to be. We should pour myrrh on his head, crown him with wreaths, and send him away to another city. - Plato, Republic

20171564

For seventeen months I have been screaming,Calling you home.I've thrown myself at the feet of butchersFor you, my son and my horror.Everything has become muddled forever -I can no longer distinguishWho is an animal, who a person, and how long The wait can be for an execution. There are now only dusty flowers, The chinking of the thurible,Tracks from somewhere into nowhereAnd, staring me in the faceAnd threatening me with swift annihilation, An enormous star.

THE VERDICTThe word landed with a stony thudOnto my still-beating breast.Never mind, I was prepared,I will manage with the rest.I have a lot of work to do today;I need to slaughter memory,Turn my living soul to stoneThen teach myself to live again. . .But how. The hot summer rustlesLike a carnival outside my window;I have long had this premonitionOf a bright day and a deserted house

“Requiem” Written: 1938-40 Officially published: 1988

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

Portrait by Natan Altman (1914)

Pussy Riot

February 21, 2012

Virgin Mary, Mother of God, chase Putin out, Chase Putin out, chase Putin out.

Black robe, golden epaulets All the parishioners are crawling to bow The phantom of liberty is up in heaven Gay pride sent to Siberia in a chain gang

Head of the KGB, their chief saint, Leads protesters to jail under guard So as not to offend the deity, Women must give birth and love

Shit, shit, holy shit! Shit, shit, holy shit!

Virgin Mary, Mother of God, become a feminist Become a feminist, become a feminist The Church sings the praises of rotten dictators Black limousines form the procession of the Cross A missionary is coming to your school Go to class and bring your money!

Patriarch Gundyayev believes in Putin Bitch, better believe in God instead The Virgin’s Girdle can’t replace the demos The Virgin herself is with us in protest!

Virgin Mary, Mother of God, chase Putin out, Chase Putin out, Chase Putin out.

A Punk Prayer (2012)

August 2012

Be it grand or slender, burrowing, blasting, or refusing to sanctify; whether it laughs out loud or is a cry without an alphabet, the choice word, the chosen silence, unmolested language surges toward knowledge, not its destruction. But who does not know of literature banned because it is interrogative; discredited because it is critical; erased because alternate?

Toni Morrison, 1993 Nobel Lecture