PWR 1CWA: Ban that Book! Rhetorics of Free Speech and Censorship

Harry Potter is a book beloved by millions, spanning one of the historically biggest fan bases in young adult fiction; it’s also a series caught between political pressures of two worlds: once denounced by conservatives for its “satanic culture,” it is now under pressure from progressives who are calling for a boycott against Rowling and her anti-trans enterprise. And in their public denouncing, many former Potterheads have taken to burning their Potter books live on social media. Book bans, it seems, are on the front lines of American culture wars.

In this class we explore the rhetoric and consequences of book bans, their banned books and authors, and arguments around freedom of speech and censorship that often surround them. We consider good faith arguments and evidence for and against book bans; explore what might be driving current or historical bans; and we discuss the social and material consequences of book bans and possible resistance to them. For context, we will read and explore the 1st Amendment and the Banned & Challenged Classics page from the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom, which catalogs a list of banned books in American schools and the various legal actions taken against them. We will read about potential sexist motives in the censoring of Anne Frank’ diary, fights over editing and censorship with Roald Dahl, and listen to a podcast that explores how Harry Potter came to be banned by both the American political right and left over the past twenty years. Together, these texts serve as frames and models for students’ own developing projects that investigate the rhetoric of book bans contemporary and historical.

Examples of Research Topics

Students develop questions around motivations and consequences for book bans, historical or contemporary. Projects might be grounded in a specific event - say, the rationale and consequences of book bans in Nazi Germany during WWII or debates over content in compulsory textbooks in primary schools in various states. Or, students might develop lines of inquiry around a specific book or author of their choosing, possibly one banned in their own schools or during a time in their primary education: Alice Walker’s Color Purple, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, George Orwell’s 1984, Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, and even…Captain Underpants? Why, for example, are certain types of books and authors banned more than others? What political or social pressures give rise to banning books generally or certain books or authors specifically?

Major Assignments

Rhetorical Analysis

(1500-1800 words; 5-6 pages) This assignment asks you to analyze the rhetorical strategies of primary texts that make a case to ban a book or author of your choice. Rather than analyze the book itself, you will look at arguments made by a critic of the book or its author to analyze and describe the logic and rhetoric around the ban or boycott.

Texts in Conversation

(1800-2400 words; 6-8 pages) This assignment invites you to deepen your inquiry around banned books. Here, you will develop lines of inquiry around either a specific banned book or author or you might develop a more open exploration around what motivates a certain kind of “book” or literacy ban (i.e. sexual content in school libraries, the controversy behind the book Three Cups of Tea or the broader topic concerning the prohibition of girls attending school and developing literacy in certain countries, the education of prison inmates). You will research and synthesize other’s arguments around the book or or books’ and their respective controversy and analyze how different sources, voices, and perspectives inform the larger conversation.

Research-based Argument

(3600-4500 words; 12-15 pages) Your RBA is the final product of this course where your voice enters into the conversation and you get to evaluate the book or the ban itself. Here is where you’ll build on and expand the work you began with the TIC. You integrate a variety of sources on your book(s) and the broader conversation around the ban; you may also use close reading of the banned book(s) to produce your own complex, provocative argument about book bans; finally, you may conduct primary research and interview people on their perspectives relative to your topic and juxtapose this evidence against the legal and scholarly precedents and arguments to advance your own understanding of book bans generally and the banning of your chosen book specifically.