Category: 21.2 Censuur

Abstract This article analyzes Félix Guattari’s concept of the (abstract) machine and its implications for the relation between literature and capitalism. Guattari’s work develops an alternative concept of the machine that endeavors to think a transversal nterrelation between heterogeneous elements. At the same time, the machinic processes that Guattari sees everywhere can operate as restraining… Continue reading Bram Ieven | Machine, poëzie en kapitaal: Een involutie op het werk van Félix Guattari

Abstract This essay arose out of the observation that while censorship is, for obvious reasons, most often studied in terms of works actually censored, it has always worked most consistently and most effectively through self-censorship. Taking Marcel Proust’s groundbreaking depiction of homosexuality in his Sodome et Gomorrhe — a work that was never censored —… Continue reading Elisabeth Ladenson | Proust, Self-Censorship and the Representation of Homosexuality

Abstract This article discusses the complex and ambivalent nature of book censorship of translations in Italy during the fascist period, from the point of view of the publishing industry. By not understanding censorship as a merely top-down phenomenon and by adopting Michel Foucault’s notion of Panopticism, it assesses the extent to which readers’ demands and… Continue reading Francesca Billiani | Aesthetic Censorship? Readers’ Reports from Fascist Italy

Abstract Using the example of Edmund Spenser, a writer who was frequently in danger of having his work censored, this article argues that analysis of Elizabethan censorship in recent times has often been misdirected. Scholars have argued about the behaviour of the authorities and whether what they decided to allow into print was reasonable. As… Continue reading Andrew Hadfield | Censorship in Renaissance England: The Fate of Edmund Spenser

Abstract Political and societal insecurities are the bases of most censorship activities, each representing suppression of freedom of expression. Governments — from military dictatorships to democracies — are concerned with security, corruption charges, and embarrassing revelations. And when a society’s moral norms seem to be challenged in literary works, officials and citizens may reject the… Continue reading Nicholas J. Karolides | Suppression of Thought: Political Bans and Societal Constraints

Abstract This essay analyzes the relationship between power, freedom, and history. It concentrates on the theoretical problems generated by the censorship of history and the justifications and effects of that censorship in contemporary political settings (dictatorship, post-conflict society, and democracy). In order to define the censorship of history, borderline areas and demarcations with closely related… Continue reading Antoon De Baets | Power, Freedom and the Censorship of History