Watch Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works

2023
1 Season

Author and critic Professor Maureen Corrigan takes you on a tour of some of the most challenged and controversial works of literature, from the plays of Shakespeare to 21st-century best-sellers—even including the dictionary and classic fairy tales. You will explore the common reasons books have been and continue to be banned, and you'll consider the shifting trends in why books are challenged.

Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works is a series that is currently running and has 1 seasons (24 episodes). The series first aired on December 21, 2023.

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Seasons

24. Contesting the Great American Novel

December 21, 2023

Bring the course to a close with a discussion of some of the formal objections to novels commonly nominated as

23. Fun Home: An All-Too-Graphic Memoir

December 21, 2023

The growth of the graphic novel genre coincided with

22. The Backlash against Harry Potter

December 21, 2023

Despite their beloved status and massive financial success, the Harry Potter books have been accused by assorted parents, school district administrators, and librarians of being excessively violent, glamorizing witchcraft and the occult, and being dismissive of traditional family values. See how Rowling

21. The Textbook Wars

December 21, 2023

A consistent category of challenges and book bans within school systems are those involving textbooks, especially history textbooks. Begin by thinking about the larger issues at stake in these controversies. Then, investigate some of the specific cases of censorship that have affected education in the United States from the 1970s to more recent controversies.

20. Alice Walker and Toni Morrison under Attack

December 21, 2023

Alice Walker and Toni Morrison are two of the most prominent Black women writers to enter the literary mainstream in the wake of the civil rights movement. Delve into Walker

19. The Battle over Critical Race Theory

December 21, 2023

First, explore some of the ways the Black Lives Matter social movement has influenced the publication and reception of some recent books. Then, look at the ways the movement has triggered fears regarding critical race theory in books and what these fears tell us about the concept of freedom in relation to books and literacy.

18. Attempts to Suppress #MeToo Books

December 21, 2023

The online social movement against sexual assault, known as the #MeToo movement, began to gather steam in 2006 and has grown in reach ever since. Here, consider some of the books that have been embraced by or emerged out of the movement and look at how they

17. Young Adult Fiction and Its Discontents

December 21, 2023

Explore the relatively new category of young adult (YA) fiction, one of the most profitable genres in publishing

16. To Kill a Mockingbird, Then and Now

December 21, 2023

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most read, most assigned, and most beloved novels in the American canon. It

15. Huckleberry Finn and Race in America

December 21, 2023

Examine the creation and legacy of Mark Twain

14. Canceled Authors

December 21, 2023

Where do we draw the line between an author

13. New Kids

December 21, 2023

Begin this look at contemporary children

12. Contested Classics of Children

December 21, 2023

In this second lecture on children

11. The Hidden Dangers of Fairy Tales

December 21, 2023

Perhaps no other body of literature is so tenaciously scrutinized and policed than books aimed at preschool and grade school readers. Here, you will begin a three-part exploration into the realm of children

10. Authors Who Censor Themselves

December 21, 2023

Consider the curious history of authors who

9. Artistry, Morality, and Nabokov

December 21, 2023

Though many critics and scholars consider Nabokov

8. Holden Caulfield

December 21, 2023

J. D. Salinger

7. Allen Ginsberg

December 21, 2023

In the 1950s, the Beat Movement in literature and pop culture set out to rebel from the status quo, and it's no surprise that one of its most famous works, Allen Ginsburg

6. Books on Fire: The Reformation to Rushdie

December 21, 2023

Here, look at the most extreme form of print censorship: the physical destruction of books deemed heretical, dangerous, or subversive. From the Protestant Reformation to Nazi Germany and beyond, you will see how the desire to stop the dissemination of various works has resulted in book burnings, violence, and even murder.

5. Anthony Comstock

December 21, 2023

Meet Anthony Comstock, the relentless late-19th-century enforcer of Victorian codes of sexual propriety. His decades-long crusade for moral purity gave us a new term for censorship and his influence shaped the history of censorship in the United States

4. Censors from the Inquisition to the Puritans

December 21, 2023

Step back in time to get the broader historical context for censorship and see how the cases of the 20th and 21st centuries fit into a much larger pattern of religious and moral pressure from the 12th century onward. Here, you will look at the influence of the Catholic Church and the colonial Puritans on the control of printed materials they found troubling or even heretical.

3. The Defense for Lady Chatterley

December 21, 2023

At the time of his death in 1930, British author D. H. Lawrence was widely viewed as one of the greatest writers of the English language. Yet, as you will see here, this popularity did not prevent some readers from taking offense to his frank depictions of sexuality, resulting in a censorship and an obscenity trial over his final novel, Lady Chatterley

2. Ulysses on Trial

December 21, 2023

James Joyce

1. Bowdlerizing the Bard

December 21, 2023

Begin the course with an introduction to the concept of literary censorship and examine why even authors as influential and esteemed as Shakespeare can fall prey to it. Meet some of the writers and editors who attempted to sanitize the bawdier parts of the Bard

Description

Where to Watch Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works

Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works is available for streaming on the The Great Courses website, both individual episodes and full seasons. You can also watch Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works on demand at Apple TV Channels and Amazon Prime and Amazon.