Forbidden Literature

Overview

In the public debate, questions of literature's societal function and worth have often been debated. Rather than to answer these questions, the authors of Forbidden Literature seek to chart the discursive framework from which the discussions arise. In an exciting new light they show how literature occupies a dual position: on the one hand deemed necessary to control, and on the other utilized as an instrument of control. The individual studies deal with censorship's past and present, in liberal democracies as well as in totalitarian regimes – tracing an historical continuum wherein literature is conceived as a phenomenon in need of regulation. Asking how and why literature becomes the object of repressive measures, and how literary practices are shaped and transformed in relation to various mechanisms of regulation, the contributions provide a prismatic perspective on the complex relationship between literature and censorship. The participating scholars represent a variety of scientific disciplines. Dealing mainly with empirical material from the Nordic countries – involving both fiction and non-fiction from a range of periods – the different contributions ultimately address the principles at stake in the regulatory and prohibiting practises primarily focusing on the 20th and 21st centuries. Through a wide definition of censorship, this books constitutes a valuable contribution to contemporary discussions on censorship and to "new" threats to freedom of expression.

Author Biography

Erik Erlanson, PhD, researcher and Senior Lecturer at the Department for Film and Literature, Linnaeus University. Jon Helgason, PhD and Associate Professor in Comparative Literature and Lecturer in Icelandic at Linnaeus University. Peter Henning, PhD and Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at Umeå University. Currently, he studies the function of art and literature in the Swedish welfare state. Linnéa Lindsköld, PhD and Senior Lecturer in Library and Information Science at the University of Borås, has conducted several discourse oriented studies of cultural and literature policy focusing on the key concepts quality and diversity, as well as radical right cultural policy.