Dangerous Literature

What do Lolita, Ulysses, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Catcher in the Rye have in common? At some point, each of these celebrated pieces of literature was banned or challenged in the United States. In celebration of free speech and the School of Humanities and Sciences’ 50th anniversary, members of the English department read from these and other provocative literary works. The reading series, entitled Dangerous Literature: Readings from the Banned Works of the 1950s and Beyond, was held at the Handwerker Gallery on March 23. Organized by English department faculty members Elizabeth Bleicher, Wendy Hyman, and Kirsten Wasson, the event was a great success. According to the department chair, associate professor Claire Gleitman, “People read wonderfully. Partly because of the surprisingly large student turnout and because the vast majority of the English department faculty participated, it really did feel like a celebration of the department, and people were sort of glowing by the end.”

As for the faculty readings and performances, Michael Twomey read from The Decameron. Dan Breen selected a passage from Darwin’s The Origin of Species. Elizabeth Bleicher arranged for a student performance of a scene from The Crucible. Jim Swafford delighted the audience with his reading of the obscenity-filled Howl, a poem by Allen Ginsberg. And Claire Gleitman collaborated with Fred Madden in performing a scene from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Gleitman finds that students really enjoy seeing their professors put themselves on the line in an unfamiliar manner. “They see me teach all the time, but they don’t see me in a stupid hat with my fly down. At least, I hope not,” she laughs.

Beyond being a celebration, this event served to underscore the struggles that writers continue to face today as they explore provocative or controversial subject matter. Gleitman notes, “As much as we might like to believe that censorship is a problem that belongs to another place and time, literature continues to be challenged all over the world and certainly in our own country. Books are removed from school libraries on a regular basis, and some high school productions of potentially controversial plays have been closed down. This all serves as a salient reminder that English departments have an important role to play in the national conversation about freedom of speech.”

While the Dangerous Literature event was the first of its kind to be organized by the English department, Gleitman was optimistic about the possibility that the department might plan other such events—perhaps in collaboration with the On the Verge play-reading series, which the Departments of English and Theatre Arts have sponsored for over a decade and in which many English department faculty members have participated.

Contributions that were made to the event were donated to the book drive to benefit the incarcerated youth literary program.