I have a short essay in a new Bloomsbury volume just published, Banning Books in America: Not a How-To, edited by Samuel Cohen. Other authors include Lydia Millett, Leonard Cassuto ("Is It Ever Ok To Ban a Book?"), Emily Harris, ("Why It's Ok to Call It a Ban"), Lopamudra Basu ("Banned Books in Transnational Contexts"), Annie Abrams ("Illiberal Education") and several others.
My essay is called “‘Amputate the Problem, Band-Aid the Solution’: Censoring Toni Morrison.”
The first two paragraphs are as follows:
The most commonly censored speakers and writers in the U.S. are people from marginalized groups whose voices and arguments threaten state authority or the status quo. Books by Toni Morrison, especially The Bluest Eye and Beloved, regularly appear on the American Library Association’s annual “10 Most Challenged” Lists, with The Bluest Eye in particular catching the attention of ban-oriented groups over the past few years. The Bluest Eye, a book published in 1970, was on the 10 most challenged books of 2022 and 2023, alongside very contemporary books like Gender Queer and All Boys Aren't Blue. As of this writing, the ALA does not yet appear to have published the most challenged books of 2024, but it is fully expected that Toni Morrison will again make an appearance.
As I have been teaching courses on Toni Morrison's fiction to undergraduates at my university, I have wanted to bring the library challenge campaigns to their attention, and possibly construct assignments inviting students to investigate the claims against Morrison's novels. The English paper prompt essentially writes itself: what is the argument against Morrison in these complaints, and how would you respond? Unfortunately, responding to this prompt has proved to be difficult, as the complainants don't actually present arguments as such. One of the people who filed a complaint against The Bluest Eye, Amber Crawford of the St. Charles Parents’ Association in Wentzville, Missouri, simply listed “pediphilia [sic], incest, rape” as a sufficient reason.
It would be too generous to call this list of words an actual argument.
One of the chapters, by author Lydia Millett, has been published on Lithub, here.