Summer Reading List: Banned Books Edition

Sunday, September 4, 2022
First Aired:
Sunday, July 10, 2022

What Is It

The American Library Association reports that last year 1,597 books were challenged or removed from libraries, schools, and universities, a record high number (compared to 273 books in 2020). Most of the challenged or removed books deal with themes relating to race or sexuality and gender, and challenges come from both the right and the left. What are the implications foryourthought-provoking summer reading? Josh and Ray talk to Stanford English professor Paula Moya about attempts to remove Toni Morrison'sThe Bluest Eyefrom schools; activist Chaz Stevens about his crusade to ban the Bible from Florida schools; and Jennifer Ruth & Michael Bérubé about their new book,It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom.

Transcript

Transcript

Ray Briggs
Welcome to Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything...

Josh Landy
...except your intelligence. I'm Josh Landy.

Comments(2)


Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Saturday, June 4, 2022 -- 7:09 AM

Laura Snyder's book sounds

Laura Snyder's book sounds promising. Looking at getting that.

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Daniel's picture

Daniel

Wednesday, June 29, 2022 -- 10:28 AM

--See a related passage in

--See a related passage in Kant's Critique of Practical Reason at A286, where recounted is an event which occurred during one of Leibniz's botanical studies in which an insect was discovered under close observation to obscure the leaf of the plant he was investigating and subsequently removed. But once looked at under a microscope, the harmonious complexity of the creature quickened and seemed to strengthen the powers of his imagination to such an extent that he afterwards replaced the insect on its leaf, preserving the benefit which it had accorded him. How might this relate to Snyder's subject? Does she suggest a spontaneous conservationism of imaginative form brought about by instrumentally enhanced powers of observation?

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