All art is political in the sense that all art takes place in the public arena and engages with an already existing ideology. Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, offers an important contemporary example. The news that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been detained by authorities has prompted significant concern. Ai Weiwei has ben arrested by the Chinese authorities.

Learn what banned books are and about the history of banned, burned and challenged books. See classic books that have been banned that are available in COM Library, and download free banned classics.

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers — in shared support of the freedom to seek and express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.

In this lesson, students will investigate the connection between the popularity of Heavy Metal and the emergence of the parental advisory system. They will consider who should have the power to declare a song "offensive" and whether or not access to such material should be regulated. They will further debate the merits of the labeling system, which is still in place, and consider whether or not labeling certain recordings should be considered censorship.

Students examine propaganda and media bias, research a variety of banned and challenged books, choose a side of the censorship issue, and support their position through an advertising campaign.

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Annabel Patterson, Professor Emeritus of English, Yale University for a discussion of her career as a literary scholar. The discussion focuses on the challenges of understanding literature in its historical and social context. Her work on censorship, Shakespeare, and her current research on the use of words in the American political dialogue are some of the topics addressed in the conversation. (59 minutes)

While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 20-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

This was my inquiry-based project that focused on forming arguments and gathering appropriate sources on the topic of banned/challenged books. This lesson plan includes the driving question, grabber, and culminating activity for assessment.

At age twenty-seven, physicist Philip Morrison joined the Manhattan Project, the code name given to the U.S. government's covert effort at Los Alamos to develop the first nuclear weapon. The Manhattan Project was also the most expensive single program ever financed by public funds. In this video segment, Morrison describes the charismatic leadership of his mentor, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the urgency of their mission to manufacture a weapon 'which if we didn't make first would lead to the loss of the war." In the interview Morrison conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'Dawn,' he describes the remote, inaccessible setting of the laboratory that operated in extreme secrecy. It was this physical isolation, he maintains, that allowed scientists extraordinary freedom to exchange ideas with fellow physicists. Morrison also reflects on his wartime fears. Germany had many of the greatest minds in physics and engineering, which created tremendous anxiety among Allied scientists that it would win the atomic race and the war, and Morrison recalls the elaborate schemes he devised to determine that country's atomic progress. At the time that he was helping assemble the world's first atomic bomb, Morrison believed that nuclear weapons 'could be made part of the construction of the peace.' A month after the war, he toured Hiroshima, and for several years thereafter he testified, became a public spokesman, and lobbied for international nuclear cooperation. After leaving Los Alamos, Morrison returned to academia. For the rest of his life he was a forceful voice against nuclear weapons.

Problem Based Learning

Should literary works be censored to reflect current morality and social norms?

This kit covers stereotyping of Arab people, the Arab/Israeli conflict, the war in Iraq and militant Muslim movements. Students will learn core information and vocabulary about the historical and contemporary Middle East issues that challenge stereotypical, simplistic and uninformed thinking, and political and ethical issues involving the role of media in constructing knowledge, evaluating historical truths, and objectivity and subjectivity in journalism.

In this class we will come to understand the vast changes in Spanish life that have taken place since Franco’s death in 1975. We will focus on the new freedom from censorship, the re-emergence of movements for regional autonomy, the new cinema, reforms in education and changes in daily life: Sex roles, work, and family that have occurred in the last decade. In so doing, we will examine myths that are often considered commonplaces when describing Spain and its people.

In this project, you will explore a real-world problem, and then work through a series of steps to analyze that problem, research ways the problem could be solved, then propose a possible solution to that problem. Often, there are no specific right or wrong solutions, but sometimes one particular solution may be better than others. The key is making sure you fully understand the problem, have researched some possible solutions, and have proposed the solution that you can support with information / evidence. Begin by reading the problem statement in Step 1. Take the time to review all the information provided in the statement, including exploring the websites, videos and / or articles that are linked. Then work on steps 2 through 8 to complete this problem-based learning experience.

This course analyzes mainstream, popular films produced in the post-World War II 20th century U.S. as cultural texts that shed light on ongoing historical struggles over gender identity and appropriate sexual behaviors. It traces the history of LGBTQ/queer film through the 20th and into the 21st century. It also examines the effect of the Hollywood Production Code and censorship of sexual themes and content, and the subsequent subversion of queer cultural production in embedded codes and metaphors. In addition, this course also considers the significance of these films as artifacts and examples of various aspects of queer theory.

This course provides an introduction to major political, social, cultural and intellectual changes in Europe from the beginnings of the Renaissance in Italy around 1300 to the outbreak of the French Revolution at the end of the 1700s. It focuses on the porous boundaries between categories of theology, magic and science, as well as print. It examines how developments in these areas altered European political institutions, social structures, and cultural practices. It also studies men and women, nobles and commoners, as well as Europeans and some non-Europeans with whom they came into contact.

These learning materials are designed to engage students in hands-on activities that stimulate them, and, most importantly, encourage critical thinking in the classroom. These educational activities in this section will provide high school social studies, media education and language arts teachers, as well as college journalism and communication educators with extensive lesson plans, resource materials, and discussion questions to introduce students to the world of war correspondence.

Reporting America at War offers students invaluable insights as it allows them to experience the life of a war reporter through the lens and the experiences of such noted journalists such as Christiane Amanpour, Walter Cronkite, David Halberstam, Chris Hedges and Morley Safer. The video explores press censorship, message control, the power of pictures, finding the right words, and works by Ernie Pyle and Edward R. Murrow.

Unlike film, theater in America does not have a ratings board that censors content. So plays have had more freedom to explore and to transgress normative culture. Yet censorship of the theater has been part of American culture from the beginning, and continues today. How and why does this happen, and who decides whether a play is too dangerous to see or to teach? Are plays dangerous? Sinful? Even demonic? In our seminar, we will study plays that have been censored, either legally or extra-legally (i.e. refused production, closed down during production, denied funding, or taken off school reading lists). We’ll look at laws, both national and local, relating to the “obscene”, as well as unofficial practices, and think about the way censorship operates in American life now. And of course we will study the offending texts, themselves, to find what is really dangerous about them, for ourselves.

Poster suggesting careless communication may be harmful to the war effort, showing a letter from a soldier stamped "examined by 42." Date stamped on recto: Jan 21 '43.

Poster for Federal Theatre Project presentation of "Censored" at the Columbia Theatre, 135 O'Farrell, San Francisco, Calif., showing bust portraits of a man and a woman, and a play script.

Poster for Federal Theatre Project presentation of "Censored" at the Mayan Theatre, Hill at 11th Street, Los Angeles, Calif., showing bust portraits of a man and a woman, and a play script.