Overview

This is a book about banned books in the U.S. — about reading them, teaching them, and lending them under the shadow of political pressure not to. Banning Books in America features novelists on banning and being banned, arguments about the histories and politics of book banning, readings of banned books in national and international contexts, and responses to new legislation by anti-censorship advocates, teachers, and librarians. Together, these writers and educators provide a view from the trenches of the wars on reading. They offer, if not a single blueprint, models for how to think about what it means to ban books and how to fight back against the forces that would ban them. This book shows that at the heart of this issue is the question of what books mean to people. Some Americans are determined to decide which books other Americans shouldn’t get to read. Why these books? Why now? Anyone who seeks to answer these questions must examine the context, historical and current, in which Americans allow this to happen. This is a book about book banning in America, and so it is a book about America.

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Reviews

Banning Books in America could not be more timely. In a moment rife with politicians bullying school leaders directly or passing laws to facilitate educational censorship in schools, colleges, and universities, everyone who cares about American democracy should be thinking about what they can do to help. Luckily, this authoritative collection offers thoughtful, engaging guidance to do just that. This is a must-read for those who want to learn about book bans and to fight against this assault on democracy. * Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms Managing Director, U.S. Free Expression Programs, PEN America * Banning books – the nowness of the problem – is at the core of the dilemma as we struggle to define, interpret, limit, and resist constraints on reading. Samuel Cohen brings together teachers, scholars, and writers themselves to help us understand, value, and protect what is increasingly at risk. Listen up, everybody. There’s work to do. * William Germano, Cooper Union, and author of On Revision *

Author Information

Samuel Cohen is Associate Professor of English at the University of Missouri, USA, where he teaches a course on banned books. He is the author of After the End of History: American Fiction in the 1990s (Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2010) and co-editor of The Legacy of David Foster Wallace (2012) and The Clash Takes on the World (Bloomsbury, 2017). He is series editor of The New American Canon: The Iowa Series in Contemporary Literature and Culture.

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