The dust-jacket photo of O’Connor’s 1952 debut novel, Wise Blood

Catholic Fiction: Flannery O’Connor and Self-Censorship

“Southern Gothic” short-story and fiction writer Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) is celebrated to this day for her wry portrayals of strange, often disturbing signs of life below the Mason-Dixon Line. But as a devout Catholic, she also practiced self-censorship in the form of avoiding or otherwise officially requesting permission to read works included on the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books. How did she reconcile the two?

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Dispatches from the Houghton Library, Part Two: Who’s In and Who’s Out?

Are admissions policies at the world’s most exclusive colleges fair? How do they even determine what “fair” is? And does this presence or absence of fairness affect our intellectual freedom?

Harvard University's Houghton Library

Dispatches from the Houghton Library, Part One

As an academic librarian with a deep interest in historical and contemporary book censorship, I can’t imagine a better way to spend my vacation than with the very books deemed too dangerous to read. This post is my first dispatch as a visiting fellow in publishing history at the Houghton Library, Harvard’s main repository of rare books and manuscripts.

Fahrenheit 451

‘Fahrenheit 451’: A Classic Dystopian Tale Throws Sparks — but Fails to Rekindle — on HBO

Novelist Ray Bradbury contended over the years since Fahrenheit 451 was first published that his intent was to show how flashier technology like television could completely eclipse our appreciation for great literature. But now that his 1953 science-fiction classic has been adapted for the 21st century with a booming made-for-HBO film, does that prove he was right?