About This Class

The very act of banning, challenging, or censoring books is a testament to the continuing power of literature. Historically, books have been challenged for all sorts of reasons (there is even a Wikipedia page that lists incidents of book-burning incidents), but the obvious common thread is the threat, perceived or real, to existing social and political power posed by works of literature. This class focuses on 20th and 21st century novels against which sanctions have been made for what they say about social, political, and moral norms.

In many ways, this course is built around how the reading materials differ from each other rather than what unites them. Some books are legally banned, that is, they cannot be circulated within particular national boundaries. Others were banned at some point, but no longer are. Others have been removed from school curriculum, and others still have their presence in libraries constantly challenged. This class asks: What do we understand about our most respected political and social taboos? Are all forms of censorship equal? Conversely, are all banned books equally transgressive? What do the different kinds of “challenges” faced by contemporary books end up meaning for their circulation and availability? What do they mean for their authors’ success as writers?

The simple act of reading banned books in a classroom environment is to fundamentally oppose the practice of censoring, challenging, or banning texts. For this reason, a large part of what we do in this class is to treat the novels we read as serious literature and, as such, examine them with a literary-critical lens. We proceed as we would in any literature course, examining the accomplishments and shortcomings of each individual text, arguing for our specific positions by carefully gathering literary evidence. To this, we add our understanding and argument for the role these novels play as banned or challenged texts. We use them to gain a sense of the social and political worlds they are part of and that they contribute to. We also use them to examine our own most dearly held social norms.

About the Professor

Dr. Madhurima Chakraborty is Assistant Professor in the English literature and Cultural Studies programs at Columbia College Chicago. Her research and teaching interests include Postcolonial, Indian Diaspora, and British literature, and her work has been published or is forthcoming in Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, Literature/Film Quarterly, South Asian Review, and Journal of Contemporary Literature.