Comparative Literature EventThursday November 27 at 4pm in the OIS

lobby

Today:• Evaluation

• American Psycho discussion

• Course recapitulation & exam questions

"There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.”

-- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

"If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”

-- Benjamin Franklin, 1730

Types of Exam Questions

1. Quotes

2. General questions about censorship (history)

3. Questions about novels

4. Group presentation question

1. Quotes

Identify the following excerpts.

Your answer should include

the title of the work,

its author,

and the year it was published

It is hence true that prosperity may attend conduct of the very worst, and that in the very thick of disorder and corruption, all of what mankind calls happiness may shed itself bountifully upon life; but let this cruel and fatal truth cause no alarm; let honest folk be no more seriously tormented by the example we are going to present of

disaster everywhere dogging the heels of virtue.

I think that while my mother was alive and my brother was a baby my parents arranged their activities so that one of them was in the clear, always, one would always have a good chance of being left behind to carry on the household if the other were arrested.

A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would take some fish off of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy off to sleep. Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor nothing to see -- just solid lonesomeness.

2. General questions

about censorship (history)

Censorship: Working Definition

• Censorship comprises many methods of

preventing the publication or dissemination of

(particular parts of)ideas, images, information,literary, artistic, educational materials,speech, printed matter, art, theater, music, electronic media, or other

forms of expression,

on the grounds that these materials are objectionable in the light of standards (beliefs, convictions, insights, prejudices) applied by the censor

Q: What actants can act as censors?

Topics

• Sexual

• Religious

• Social

• Political

Methods

• Suppression

• Challenge

• Banning

• Expurgation

• Barring

& Selection

Types of censorship

• Preventive censorship

• Repressive censorship

– Market censorship

• Self-censorship

Charges

• Heresy

• Blasphemy, profanity– Apostasy

• Treason

• Political dissidence

• Obscenity

Scandal

Why was (is) the work considered to be scandalous?

In what way is it pushing boundaries? What are these boundaries?

Who determines/has determined them?

Would you say the text is still scandalous today? Why (not)?

Is it scandalous or subversive to you? Why (not)?

Which work that we have read was most (least) scandalous to you?

Motivate your answer.

Literary

Is this text literature?How can the literary be understood?

In what ways is the literary inviting of the scandalous?

In what ways can the exploration of a topic of a scandalous nature benefit from a literary treatment? In what ways does the notion or experience of controversy vary with works that are experienced as being literary as opposed to those that are not considered to be literary?

Is there a greater “risk” of being affected by (the ideological message of) a literary text than by a non-literary/less literary text?

What is it that the literary allows for?

In what ways can a novel, a narrative, a literary work be scandalous in ways that a pamphlet or a treatise perhaps can’t be?

Fiction

Is the text a work of fiction?

What makes a text a work of fiction?

In what ways can the (perceived) fictional status of a text be relevant to its (perceived) scandalous nature?

Criticism

In what ways can literary criticism be interpreted as an act of rebellion?

Self-governmentFreedom of expressionSocial responsibility

Should people always be allowed to be self-governing with regard to their media use? Children? Criminals?

Do you think there should be a censoring authority in society?At schools? In libraries? In jails? In what cases is censorship to be

preferred?

Consider the following: “Most of us, I dare say, live in the tension of these two traditions. We are fervent advocates of utter freedom in the marketplace of ideas, and yet we also shy away from the notion that anything goes as we realize if not the necessity then the desirability of certain societal norms” (Hillerbrand 609).

Can you think of cases in which freedom of expression should be given priority over social responsibility?

Can you think of cases in which social responsibility should be given responsibility over freedom of expression?

Individual integrity

Freedom of expression

What should be given precedence: freedom of expression or protecting people from being offended and feeling threatened?

Consider Coetzee’s statement: “People sometimes feel, or claim to feel, distress at what they take to be the immorality or depravity of the actions of others, even when such actions do not directly and unambiguously touch them.” (17-18)

Position yourself critically with regard to the following statements:

Webster in A Brief History of Blasphemy (1990)"if we push the liberal idea of artistic freedom to its logical extreme the inevitable consequence would be an 'amoral society' [...] absolute freedom of speech is ultimately no more desirable than absolute freedom to murder" (Qtd. Ranasinha 50)

&

"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend it ceases to exist" (Rushdie Qtd. Ranashinha 51)

Religion

The history of censorship cases shows that religion (beliefs and convictions) has been an important motivator in censorship activities.

Why do you think that that is the case?

3. General Questions About Novels

• Discuss three objections made against The Satanic Verses by those offended by the work.

• Do you hold Tropic of Cancer to be a work of misogyny?

• A Clockwork Orange:

• Explore the idea that language is violated in this novel.

• Explore the idea that language is violating in this novel.

4. Group Presentation Question

All Quiet on the Western Front shows the juxtaposition of scenes of, for instance, intimacy and alienation, comradeship and destruction, nature descriptions and war scenes. Incorporate the presence of this pairing/dichotomizing in an argument that supports the often-stated belief that All Quiet on the Western Front is “the greatest war novel ever written.”

Explain why Burger’s Daughter can be understood as a Coming of Age novel both in terms of social responsibility and womanhood.

If you had to recommend American Psycho to someone else, how would you go about? Incorporate in your recommendation also the more disturbing aspects of the novel.