Press Release from University of Otago
DO NOT READ - BANNED
‘Instruct watch for new novel entitled ‘Butchers Shop’ by Jean Devanny Wellington lady Publishers Duckworth, London, alleged depiction station life New Zealand disgusting indecent communistic’ – Bert (London).
DO NOT READ - BANNED
‘Instruct watch for new novel entitled ‘Butchers Shop’ by Jean Devanny Wellington lady Publishers Duckworth, London, alleged depiction station life New Zealand disgusting indecent communistic’ – Bert (London).
A telegram received from London, 1 March 1926, addressed to Frank David Thomson, the Prime Minister’s secretary.
Societies have always wrestled with censorship. Indeed the suppression or attempted suppression of material considered offensive, objectionable, or a threat to security (real or imagined) is as old as literature itself. And books, as transmitters of literature, have been the excellent targets. For example, religious works such as the Bible and the Qur’an, polemics such as Machiavelli’s The Prince or Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, socially contentious publications such as Emile Zola’s Nana or Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, and the so-called ‘obscene’, morally challenging books like James Joyce’s Ulysses and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. In more recent times, publications that promote anarchy (The Anarchist Cookbook) and ‘whip-slash’ violence (Brother Stud; Hitch-hiking Pizza Boy) have featured more frequently.
An exhibition entitled Heresy, Sedition, Obscenity: The Book Challenged begins at the de Beer gallery, Special Collections, University of Otago, on 30 October 2009.
Societies have always wrestled with censorship. Indeed the suppression or attempted suppression of material considered offensive, objectionable, or a threat to security (real or imagined) is as old as literature itself. And books, as transmitters of literature, have been the excellent targets. For example, religious works such as the Bible and the Qur’an, polemics such as Machiavelli’s The Prince or Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, socially contentious publications such as Emile Zola’s Nana or Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, and the so-called ‘obscene’, morally challenging books like James Joyce’s Ulysses and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. In more recent times, publications that promote anarchy (The Anarchist Cookbook) and ‘whip-slash’ violence (Brother Stud; Hitch-hiking Pizza Boy) have featured more frequently.
An exhibition entitled Heresy, Sedition, Obscenity: The Book Challenged begins at the de Beer gallery, Special Collections, University of Otago, on 30 October 2009.
The exhibition not only offers a selection of some of the most famous, and lesser known books that have been banned, censored, or challenged, but it also reveals that there has been a healthy industry throughout history in the banning of books. Individual censors, Church Fathers, and various governments have all made pronouncements on books deemed injurious to the State, or status quo. Banned books have been burned in town squares, removed from public sale, and taken off the shelves of libraries and classrooms. In some instances, the author or printer of the work have been either outlawed or condemned to death.
New Zealand is not exempt. With legislation notoriously difficult and with increasing pressure to apply consistency to rulings on what was indecent or obscene, the Indecent Publications Tribunal (later the Office of Film and Literature Classification) was established in 1963. Rulings were often made on imported publications such as Nabokov’s Lolita (1960) or William Burroughs’s Dead Fingers Talk (1963). These days, ‘home-grown’ publications (and more increasingly films) have come under scrutiny.
The exhibition starts on 30 October 2009 and runs through to 29 January 2010.
Venue: De Beer Gallery, Special Collections, 1st floor, Central University Library
Hours: 8.30 to 5.00 Monday to Friday
For further enquiries, contact Dr Donald Kerr, Special Collections Librarian
University of Otago Library
Phone: (03) 479-8330; email: donald.kerr@otago.ac.nz
New Zealand is not exempt. With legislation notoriously difficult and with increasing pressure to apply consistency to rulings on what was indecent or obscene, the Indecent Publications Tribunal (later the Office of Film and Literature Classification) was established in 1963. Rulings were often made on imported publications such as Nabokov’s Lolita (1960) or William Burroughs’s Dead Fingers Talk (1963). These days, ‘home-grown’ publications (and more increasingly films) have come under scrutiny.
The exhibition starts on 30 October 2009 and runs through to 29 January 2010.
Venue: De Beer Gallery, Special Collections, 1st floor, Central University Library
Hours: 8.30 to 5.00 Monday to Friday
For further enquiries, contact Dr Donald Kerr, Special Collections Librarian
University of Otago Library
Phone: (03) 479-8330; email: donald.kerr@otago.ac.nz
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