WEBVTT 00:01.670 --> 00:04.330 Professor Amy Hungerford: Today I'm going 00:04.331 --> 00:07.411 to talk about censorship in the United States since 1945, 00:07.410 --> 00:10.750 in the period that we're studying, and I'm going to 00:10.751 --> 00:14.891 connect that with The Human Stain and some of my general 00:14.894 --> 00:18.774 thoughts about Roth's work at the very end of lecture. 00:18.770 --> 00:23.420 So, I'll give you a little bit of history and then a little bit 00:23.420 --> 00:25.220 of meditation on Roth. 00:25.220 --> 00:28.390 I asked you, for today, to go around to the 00:28.394 --> 00:32.174 various bookstores in New Haven, choose one and go, 00:32.174 --> 00:34.824 and observe what you saw there. 00:34.820 --> 00:39.370 And in particular I asked you to think about what you are not 00:39.372 --> 00:42.882 seeing there. So, does anyone want to tell me 00:42.884 --> 00:46.564 what they saw on their little observation trip? 00:46.560 --> 00:47.240 What did you observe? 00:47.240 --> 00:50.490 00:50.490 --> 00:54.870 Yes.Student: I went to Labyrinth, 00:54.870 --> 00:59.760 and they had a ton of history, historiography, 00:59.760 --> 01:01.990 cultural studies, all in the front, 01:01.990 --> 01:05.730 that seemed very deliberately diverse.Professor Amy 01:05.729 --> 01:09.009 Hungerford: Diverse in what way?Student: 01:09.009 --> 01:13.099 Diverse, culturally, as far as the 01:13.102 --> 01:16.832 history books that I looked at. 01:16.830 --> 01:20.030 They ranged anything from Germany during the Weimar 01:20.034 --> 01:22.474 Republic, to the history of tragedy, 01:22.470 --> 01:28.910 to death in the Atlantic slave trade, to all sorts of other 01:28.907 --> 01:32.567 things, though mainly European. 01:32.569 --> 01:36.189 What was not there, which I found interesting, 01:36.186 --> 01:38.676 which I looked for specifically, 01:38.677 --> 01:43.737 because I thought it might not be there, was Mein Kampf. 01:43.739 --> 01:44.969 Professor Amy Hungerford: Did you look 01:44.969 --> 01:45.559 back in the stacks too? 01:45.560 --> 01:47.320 Uh huh.Student: Yeah, I looked in the 01:47.322 --> 01:48.372 stacks. I didn't see it there, 01:48.371 --> 01:50.121 or in the library at all, so I guess they don't support 01:50.116 --> 01:51.116 Hitler, which I approve 01:51.123 --> 01:53.543 of.Professor Amy Hungerford: You approve of 01:53.539 --> 01:55.999 Mein Kampf not being in Labyrinth bookstore. 01:56.000 --> 01:57.040 Student: I approve of not supporting 01:57.036 --> 01:57.956 Hitler, I guess, Mein Kampf… 01:57.960 --> 01:59.110 Professor Amy Hungerford: Very good. 01:59.110 --> 02:01.040 Okay. What else? 02:01.040 --> 02:04.900 What else did people notice? 02:04.900 --> 02:10.000 What did you notice about the bookstore? 02:10.000 --> 02:12.690 Yes.Student: There is a table that has 02:12.688 --> 02:15.098 works by Yale graduates.Professor Amy 02:15.097 --> 02:18.457 Hungerford: Which bookstore did you go to?Student: 02:18.457 --> 02:19.967 Barnes and Noble. 02:19.970 --> 02:24.050 Yeah, so just clearly trying to sell to the market they 02:24.052 --> 02:27.682 know.Professor Amy Hungerford: By Yale 02:27.681 --> 02:30.101 graduates. But here's a question: 02:30.099 --> 02:32.389 not by Yale professors?Student: 02:32.385 --> 02:34.605 I'm not sure.Professor Amy 02:34.609 --> 02:37.759 Hungerford: It's a significant difference. 02:37.760 --> 02:40.290 What else did you notice? 02:40.290 --> 02:43.710 Yes. Local market. 02:43.710 --> 02:47.710 What else did you notice? 02:47.710 --> 02:49.500 Someone--Yes, Eli.Student: 02:49.498 --> 02:52.628 I guess that I really haven't thought about this this 02:52.627 --> 02:55.477 much, but how much of a decision it 02:55.475 --> 02:59.515 is to decide what kind of shelf the book goes in, 02:59.520 --> 03:02.720 like history versus philosophy, and I guess it's probably the 03:02.724 --> 03:04.784 publishers who do that, or, I don't know, 03:04.782 --> 03:06.742 but--Professor Amy Hungerford: Well, 03:06.737 --> 03:09.067 this is a really important question: where to shelve the 03:09.074 --> 03:10.754 book. Now, it's not just about 03:10.746 --> 03:13.336 categories, although it is partly about categories, 03:13.343 --> 03:15.683 what subject matter does a book belong to; 03:15.680 --> 03:18.630 it's also about what kind of shelf, physically. 03:18.629 --> 03:23.549 So those tables that we're thinking about in Labyrinth, 03:23.548 --> 03:27.918 with that array of literature, who chose that? 03:27.919 --> 03:33.639 Does anyone know who chose that literature to put on that table? 03:33.640 --> 03:35.380 I can tell you in a minute. 03:35.380 --> 03:37.360 One question is: who chose that? 03:37.360 --> 03:39.600 Now, those tables are in Barnes and Noble, too. 03:39.599 --> 03:42.339 So, you walk into the bookstore on the ground level, 03:42.344 --> 03:45.474 and there are all those tables, and the stacks go up really 03:45.465 --> 03:47.905 high. There are all these elaborate 03:47.907 --> 03:50.807 ways of getting books' covers to face you. 03:50.810 --> 03:53.640 Okay. Then there are all the stacks 03:53.643 --> 03:58.063 and shelves up on the upper level, and those books are 03:58.060 --> 04:01.310 interspersed with smaller displays. 04:01.310 --> 04:03.930 So, if you go up there, you'll begin to see some very 04:03.928 --> 04:04.908 interesting things. 04:04.909 --> 04:06.729 There's a little table, for example, 04:06.726 --> 04:09.846 up on the right. Maybe you noticed this, 04:09.849 --> 04:14.709 right as you come up the stairs in Barnes and Noble, 04:14.705 --> 04:18.795 and it's promoted as "urban literature." 04:18.800 --> 04:23.290 Well, in my experience, having seen it over the years, 04:23.285 --> 04:26.835 it's really just code for black writers, 04:26.839 --> 04:32.059 somehow, so it's all these books about the black history of 04:32.060 --> 04:34.310 New Haven, or whatever. 04:34.310 --> 04:37.130 So, you have these little tables around. 04:37.129 --> 04:40.259 Now, the big tables in front of Barnes and Noble, 04:40.256 --> 04:42.236 who chooses what goes on there? 04:42.240 --> 04:47.300 That space is bought and paid for by publishers, 04:47.301 --> 04:49.671 bought and paid for. 04:49.670 --> 04:53.310 It's part of the contract with the publisher to stock that book 04:53.310 --> 04:55.600 that it be displayed in certain ways. 04:55.600 --> 04:58.730 You know those nice discounts that you get, 04:58.725 --> 05:02.735 20% off the New York Times bestseller books when 05:02.744 --> 05:04.534 they're in hardback? 05:04.529 --> 05:08.509 Those are possible at Barnes and Noble because of the huge 05:08.507 --> 05:10.807 buying power of that bookstore. 05:10.810 --> 05:12.970 So, they buy in huge volume. 05:12.970 --> 05:17.320 Now, a store like Labyrinth or its predecessor, 05:17.316 --> 05:23.266 Book Haven, wasn't able to have that kind of volume in sales, 05:23.269 --> 05:27.739 and so they couldn't negotiate with a publisher that sort of 05:27.737 --> 05:29.957 discount. So, that means that a smaller 05:29.959 --> 05:32.259 bookstore, because of its smaller buying power, 05:32.259 --> 05:36.699 can't provide a competitive price in a market where Barnes 05:36.696 --> 05:39.106 and Noble is right next door. 05:39.110 --> 05:42.680 Now, there were ways that independent bookstores try to 05:42.677 --> 05:45.667 compensate for that, especially in this market, 05:45.665 --> 05:49.495 by giving discounts to faculty members stocking their books at 05:49.500 --> 05:52.300 the bookstore. This is somewhat controversial, 05:52.301 --> 05:55.371 although it's Barnes and Noble that has tried to make it 05:55.373 --> 05:59.063 controversial by bringing it up with the university and saying, 05:59.060 --> 06:01.760 "Now, isn't this a kind of bribery?" 06:01.759 --> 06:05.119 But that's the way that a store like Labyrinth, 06:05.117 --> 06:09.537 or like Book Haven before it, was able to try to be price 06:09.536 --> 06:14.166 competitive among people it knew wanted to buy from them, 06:14.170 --> 06:17.310 those professors who stock their book at an independent 06:17.311 --> 06:19.411 bookstore. So, back to this question 06:19.407 --> 06:22.197 of who decides what's on the table: at Labyrinth I went in, 06:22.201 --> 06:24.611 and I said, "Who decides what's on this table?" 06:24.610 --> 06:27.020 And they said, "Oh, she's over there," and I 06:27.017 --> 06:30.317 went and talked to her and I said, "How do you decide what's 06:30.322 --> 06:32.542 on the table?" She said, "Well, 06:32.536 --> 06:37.056 you know, I had a good general education as a young person, 06:37.060 --> 06:40.680 and I kind of know who's who in the intellectual circles in 06:40.678 --> 06:42.798 Europe and in the United States. 06:42.800 --> 06:45.710 And so I browse the lists, and I talk to sales reps when 06:45.710 --> 06:47.140 they come in, and I read, 06:47.139 --> 06:50.019 and I look at what certain courses are stocking, 06:50.015 --> 06:52.825 and I see what people are reading on campus, 06:52.830 --> 06:54.320 and then I decide." 06:54.319 --> 06:58.899 That's really different from that space being bought and paid 06:58.898 --> 07:03.018 for by a publisher as part of a marketing agreement. 07:03.019 --> 07:06.549 Those tables are very powerful, for browsers, 07:06.552 --> 07:10.002 in shaping what browsers might possibly buy, 07:10.004 --> 07:12.984 or think about, when they come in to a 07:12.975 --> 07:15.905 bookstore. So, that space is 07:15.909 --> 07:19.209 particularly key to a bookstore's presence, 07:19.207 --> 07:21.717 culturally, in the community. 07:21.720 --> 07:25.920 And Sarah's point, about the Yale graduates on the 07:25.923 --> 07:30.643 bookshelf: that is a nod to Barnes and Noble's immediate 07:30.640 --> 07:33.140 context. So, there is that local 07:33.136 --> 07:39.006 marketing piece. But, think about this. 07:39.009 --> 07:44.119 There are just a few fiction buyers who work with publishers 07:44.119 --> 07:48.969 to decide what novels will end up in Barnes and Noble. 07:48.970 --> 07:51.920 So, writers, when they're thinking about, 07:51.916 --> 07:53.606 "can I sell my book?" 07:53.610 --> 07:58.670 instead of thinking, "I wonder if I can impress the 07:58.671 --> 08:04.241 owner of the Seminary Co-op in Hyde Park in Chicago," 08:04.240 --> 08:07.310 --a very famous, huge, wonderful bookstore, 08:07.312 --> 08:11.482 not a chain--instead of saying, "I want to sell my book in 08:11.482 --> 08:13.442 Chicago. It's set there, 08:13.436 --> 08:15.586 and maybe it'll be appealing. 08:15.589 --> 08:19.429 I wonder if I can impress the owner of that bookstore," and 08:19.431 --> 08:23.211 having a strategy that addresses those kinds of individual 08:23.206 --> 08:27.176 circumstances in different spaces-- Powell's in Seattle, 08:27.180 --> 08:32.690 Labyrinth in New York--they have to say, "I wonder if I can 08:32.687 --> 08:36.577 impress the buy from Barnes and Noble." 08:36.580 --> 08:40.430 So, instead of many people making that decision about 08:40.432 --> 08:43.622 whether a novel is worthy of being promoted, 08:43.618 --> 08:48.158 it's one person. That person becomes extremely 08:48.156 --> 08:53.206 powerful in shaping what literary texts reach us, 08:53.214 --> 08:58.804 what comes to our attention through the bookstore. 08:58.799 --> 09:02.789 Now, have you ever wondered, as you're driving down 09:02.789 --> 09:06.629 the street, why there might be a Dunkin' Donuts here, 09:06.631 --> 09:10.031 and a Dunkin' Donuts just two blocks away? 09:10.030 --> 09:11.980 Have you ever noticed that? 09:11.980 --> 09:14.700 There are various stores that you'll see this: 09:14.699 --> 09:17.419 gas stations sometimes, fast food restaurants, 09:17.419 --> 09:18.809 sometimes Wal-Mart. 09:18.809 --> 09:22.359 Bookstores are another that you will sometimes see this. 09:22.360 --> 09:26.130 Why is that? Well, what they're doing is 09:26.128 --> 09:30.738 competing in an overwhelming way with another store in that 09:30.744 --> 09:32.944 market. Usually this happens when 09:32.936 --> 09:36.006 they're trying to drive another store out of business. 09:36.009 --> 09:40.149 So, they're a big enough chain, they can absorb losses from an 09:40.152 --> 09:43.482 unproductive second store to saturate a market, 09:43.480 --> 09:47.370 and then they can absorb the closing of that second store 09:47.369 --> 09:51.119 once the competitor has been driven out of business. 09:51.120 --> 09:54.440 So that's why that market saturation happens. 09:54.440 --> 09:58.070 It's not because they think it's going to be profitable, 09:58.066 --> 10:01.296 that there's another hundred-percent increase when 10:01.297 --> 10:04.327 they add that second store one block over. 10:04.330 --> 10:07.850 It's all about market saturation. 10:07.850 --> 10:12.490 It's getting it as close to a hundred percent as possible. 10:12.490 --> 10:16.580 So, those kinds of tactics are possible for chain stores, 10:16.576 --> 10:20.586 and they are not possible for independent bookstores. 10:20.590 --> 10:25.320 And this is how many independent bookstores have been 10:25.324 --> 10:30.154 taken off the map in our cities and in the suburbs. 10:30.149 --> 10:35.839 So, this is one way that censorship comes to us: 10:35.840 --> 10:41.200 not in that old-fashioned way of censorship laws, 10:41.196 --> 10:45.656 but in a new way, market censorship. 10:45.659 --> 10:51.379 This has always been part of how things work in a capitalist 10:51.380 --> 10:54.140 economy. It's true that in the past 10:54.136 --> 10:58.186 literary enterprises--be they selling books or writing books 10:58.189 --> 11:02.109 or publishing books--had to make a profit in order to stay 11:02.105 --> 11:05.205 afloat. But the way that profit was 11:05.207 --> 11:10.187 made has changed from the early twentieth century until this 11:10.185 --> 11:14.145 point, and I'm going to say more about that. 11:14.149 --> 11:17.899 So, just by going in to the bookstore, I want you to think 11:17.901 --> 11:21.651 about--the next time you go in, think about how things are 11:21.652 --> 11:23.432 being presented to you. 11:23.429 --> 11:27.479 Now, how many of you get most of the books you buy--not for 11:27.475 --> 11:30.605 classes…well, let's just ask this, 11:30.614 --> 11:35.514 blanket, and then I'll break it down--how many of you get most 11:35.509 --> 11:38.799 of the books you buy from a bookstore? 11:38.800 --> 11:40.040 Still quite a few of you. 11:40.039 --> 11:44.049 How many of you get them mostly over the internet? 11:44.050 --> 11:47.300 Okay, not a majority. 11:47.299 --> 11:50.949 Taking out classes, books you buy for pleasure, 11:50.945 --> 11:55.295 your own decision to buy them, how many of you are still 11:55.303 --> 11:57.763 buying those in bookstores? 11:57.760 --> 11:59.260 Okay, actually a lot of you. 11:59.259 --> 12:02.499 So, that really, even, tips the scale in favor 12:02.495 --> 12:05.725 of bookstores, so that's interesting to me. 12:05.730 --> 12:08.150 I wasn't sure what you would say. 12:08.149 --> 12:13.469 That suggests that bookstores are still powerful purveyors of 12:13.472 --> 12:16.592 culture; they still shape what you think 12:16.585 --> 12:18.375 about and what you read. 12:18.379 --> 12:21.619 It's browsing, or maybe that you've read about 12:21.622 --> 12:25.802 something, and you go looking for it, that brings you in to 12:25.802 --> 12:30.572 the bookstore. Censorship does have a 12:30.566 --> 12:36.296 legal history in this part of the century. 12:36.299 --> 12:42.939 And so now I want to just give you a little rundown of that. 12:42.940 --> 12:47.010 12:47.009 --> 12:49.899 So, this is actually a title of a chapter of a book that I will 12:49.896 --> 12:53.096 be writing on the post-45 novel, and I'm going to have this as 12:53.099 --> 12:54.829 the last chapter of that book. 12:54.830 --> 12:58.760 The reason for that is that censorship and what I'm calling 12:58.761 --> 13:02.491 censure--that's the public outcry against literature, 13:02.490 --> 13:07.520 even not on legal grounds--is a way for the culture to speak 13:07.519 --> 13:09.479 back to the literary. 13:09.480 --> 13:12.620 So, I spend a lot of time in this class, and in my teaching 13:12.623 --> 13:15.933 in general, and in my writing, talking about what books say to 13:15.930 --> 13:18.520 us. But what do we say back to 13:18.524 --> 13:20.744 those books as a society? 13:20.740 --> 13:26.440 Well, censorship and its companion, censure, 13:26.438 --> 13:30.678 do a lot of that talking back. 13:30.679 --> 13:33.469 So, there are two sides of access to literature. 13:33.470 --> 13:37.420 I've just been talking a little bit about market constraints on 13:37.424 --> 13:40.914 what can be published and read, and now I'm going to talk a 13:40.905 --> 13:42.735 little bit about legal constraints. 13:42.740 --> 13:47.500 I'm going to get back to the market constraints in a little 13:47.503 --> 13:50.323 while. Since the early twentieth 13:50.319 --> 13:54.489 century, a lot of the legal constraints on publishing and 13:54.490 --> 13:57.320 distributing literature have eased. 13:57.320 --> 14:02.250 In the 1870s, the Comstock laws in the United 14:02.248 --> 14:08.068 States aimed to regulate the use of the mails for the 14:08.072 --> 14:12.442 dissemination of obscene materials. 14:12.440 --> 14:18.380 These laws were used in 1914 to indict Margaret Sanger for 14:18.381 --> 14:23.701 sending information about contraception across state 14:23.697 --> 14:26.677 lines, and she had to flee, 14:26.678 --> 14:31.038 and she left the country to protect herself. 14:31.039 --> 14:35.079 So, just the description of how contraception worked was a 14:35.080 --> 14:40.410 violation of the Comstock laws; so of course we're happily out 14:40.413 --> 14:44.473 of that moment. In 1933, for literature there 14:44.465 --> 14:49.285 was a major decision by Judge Woolsey declaring that James 14:49.293 --> 14:52.853 Joyce's Ulysses was not obscene. 14:52.850 --> 14:58.730 Often censorship in literature would have to do with the import 14:58.730 --> 15:02.430 of literature into the United States. 15:02.429 --> 15:05.739 So, this is sort of on the same logic as the Comstock laws. 15:05.740 --> 15:09.560 The Comstock laws regulate the traveling of obscene literature 15:09.563 --> 15:10.883 across state lines. 15:10.879 --> 15:15.579 Customs regulations regulated obscenity coming in to the 15:15.582 --> 15:18.282 United States. Why is obscenity important? 15:18.279 --> 15:22.769 Well, obscenity is largely recognized by legal scholars as 15:22.765 --> 15:26.695 not being protected by the Fourteenth Amendment; 15:26.700 --> 15:30.080 it is not protected speech. 15:30.080 --> 15:34.200 So, that's why it was important for someone who wanted to keep 15:34.201 --> 15:38.121 Ulysses out of American hands to call it obscene. 15:38.120 --> 15:42.710 Now, it's very interesting to read what Woolsey says about 15:42.712 --> 15:43.762 Ulysses. 15:43.760 --> 15:46.850 15:46.850 --> 15:51.190 It just shows you how the learned reading of literature 15:51.188 --> 15:54.478 comes to have a legal impact in the world. 15:54.480 --> 15:59.610 So, this is Woolsey on Joyce: Joyce has attempted, 15:59.613 --> 16:02.063 it seems to me, with astonishing success, 16:02.064 --> 16:04.704 to show how the screen of consciousness, 16:04.700 --> 16:08.120 with its ever-shifting kaleidoscopic impressions, 16:08.120 --> 16:11.470 carries, as it were, on a plastic palimpsest, 16:11.470 --> 16:15.000 not only what is in the focus of each man's observation of the 16:15.003 --> 16:18.863 actual things about him, but also on a penumbral zone 16:18.855 --> 16:23.705 residual of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up 16:23.712 --> 16:26.272 by association, from the domain of the 16:26.272 --> 16:28.702 subconscious. He's talking about the 16:28.696 --> 16:32.626 stream-of-consciousness method of narration in Ulysses. 16:32.629 --> 16:35.889 He shows how each of these impressions affects the life and 16:35.888 --> 16:38.618 the behavior of the character which he is describing, 16:38.620 --> 16:40.250 and I'm going to skip down. 16:40.250 --> 16:44.270 He goes on to detail more about Joyce's technique: 16:44.271 --> 16:49.111 "It is because Joyce has been loyal to his technique and has 16:49.113 --> 16:52.563 not funked its necessary implications, 16:52.559 --> 16:55.979 but has honestly attempted to tell fully what his characters 16:55.983 --> 16:59.643 think about, that he has been the subject of so many attacks, 16:59.639 --> 17:03.429 and that his purpose has been so often misunderstood and 17:03.429 --> 17:07.479 misrepresented." So, here, Woolsey takes a very 17:07.477 --> 17:13.087 serious view of Joyce's artistic project, and he takes as the 17:13.093 --> 17:18.343 mark of its success what he calls the loyalty of Joyce to 17:18.335 --> 17:21.915 that project, of showing exactly what 17:21.920 --> 17:26.300 characters think in their subconscious associations, 17:26.299 --> 17:30.419 as those rise into consciousness and into language. 17:30.420 --> 17:39.970 That principle is furthered in the United States in 1957 with a 17:39.972 --> 17:42.902 case called Roth. 17:42.900 --> 17:47.540 It's Roth v. United States, 17:47.543 --> 17:55.753 and in this case Woolsey's approach to the literary is 17:55.746 --> 18:04.256 enshrined in American law, affirmed as a precedent. 18:04.259 --> 18:10.369 So, according to the Roth case, something can be judged obscene 18:10.371 --> 18:13.921 only if it meets three conditions, 18:13.920 --> 18:18.260 and those are these: The books' descriptions of 18:18.255 --> 18:24.095 nudity or sex must go beyond the limits of taste established by 18:24.098 --> 18:26.358 community standards. 18:26.359 --> 18:29.979 So that phrase, "community standards," will 18:29.983 --> 18:35.163 become very important in later law, and I'll mention how in a 18:35.160 --> 18:37.820 minute. "It must not appeal to the 18:37.824 --> 18:40.004 interests of the average adult." 18:40.000 --> 18:43.010 18:43.009 --> 18:47.679 So, you have to be really aberrant in order to meet this 18:47.676 --> 18:50.126 standard; it can't appeal to the 18:50.133 --> 18:52.353 interests of the average adult. 18:52.349 --> 18:58.169 That's what makes it obscene, so--I don't know--necrophilia, 18:58.167 --> 19:00.137 maybe that counts. 19:00.140 --> 19:04.790 And lastly--this is the kicker--it must have no 19:04.788 --> 19:09.638 redeeming social or literary value whatsoever. 19:09.640 --> 19:14.080 That means if you can prove just that one, 19:14.082 --> 19:17.662 you're safe. So, no matter what it is, 19:17.659 --> 19:22.109 even if it is necrophilia, if you can prove that it has 19:22.107 --> 19:25.317 literary value it cannot be obscene. 19:25.320 --> 19:29.050 19:29.049 --> 19:32.959 And so this particular standard comes in to play when 19:32.962 --> 19:36.662 Allen Ginsberg's Howl goes on trial in--I think 19:36.664 --> 19:38.904 it's 1959--it goes on trial. 19:38.900 --> 19:43.540 Similarly, a customs case and a case about selling the book: 19:43.539 --> 19:48.099 it was bought at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, 19:48.099 --> 19:51.969 and the poor sales clerk was indicted for selling it, 19:51.968 --> 19:56.058 and also the bookstore was indicted for importing it. 19:56.060 --> 19:57.690 It had been published in Europe. 19:57.690 --> 20:02.190 All they had to do in that trial, and it's very funny to 20:02.190 --> 20:07.000 read the transcript, is to prove that Ginsberg in 20:07.004 --> 20:13.254 Howl was doing anything remotely resembling literary 20:13.248 --> 20:15.998 work. And it's very funny to see 20:16.004 --> 20:18.924 people trying to argue that he was not. 20:18.920 --> 20:22.870 So, it's not enough to say that he uses the word "cock," for 20:22.872 --> 20:28.012 example, in that poem; that's not enough. 20:28.009 --> 20:31.539 And the prosecutor tries to make the case on the basis of 20:31.539 --> 20:34.379 individual words, and then you see them having 20:34.375 --> 20:38.155 these hilarious conversations about how individual words work 20:38.156 --> 20:41.556 in metaphors and how they mean different things. 20:41.559 --> 20:46.669 This standard really saves literature from any kind of 20:46.674 --> 20:49.574 continuing legal censorship. 20:49.569 --> 20:54.629 But, there are other ways of producing censorship; 20:54.630 --> 20:58.780 that "community standards" comes to be a problem in, 20:58.778 --> 21:01.298 for example, textbook design. 21:01.299 --> 21:06.439 So, there are these huge markets in public schools in 21:06.440 --> 21:09.900 Florida and Texas and California, 21:09.900 --> 21:13.900 and so textbook publishers have to appeal to the community 21:13.896 --> 21:17.046 standards of those huge, powerful markets, 21:17.047 --> 21:21.027 and that has an impact on what's available to school 21:21.030 --> 21:23.530 systems all over the country. 21:23.529 --> 21:27.939 So, there is a way that those community standards, 21:27.943 --> 21:33.533 while in the Roth case they're redeeming--they help to make the 21:33.527 --> 21:38.247 case against censorship, against a too-wide definition 21:38.248 --> 21:42.488 of obscenity--it does have an impact in other ways in the 21:42.492 --> 21:44.162 opposite direction. 21:44.160 --> 21:48.480 Since the 1990s, in the wake of these changes, 21:48.476 --> 21:53.846 libraries have become the primary place where legal cases 21:53.847 --> 21:58.557 are based. So, in 1982 the school board of 21:58.562 --> 22:03.022 Long Island, in Island Trees, Long Island, 22:03.022 --> 22:06.952 tries to remove, or actually does remove 22:06.949 --> 22:09.379 Black Boy, Slaughterhouse 5, 22:09.375 --> 22:13.575 and various other sort of books of the 1960s, 22:13.579 --> 22:19.909 mainly about politics, mostly has them removed from 22:19.910 --> 22:22.570 the school library. 22:22.569 --> 22:27.899 And a suit is brought against that school system for doing 22:27.895 --> 22:31.095 that. The decision in that case 22:31.096 --> 22:36.536 affirms that even though public school systems are within their 22:36.539 --> 22:41.809 rights in the context of the classroom to restrict what is on 22:41.807 --> 22:46.477 the syllabi of their teachers, that the school library 22:46.483 --> 22:50.043 represents what they call a "special environment." 22:50.039 --> 22:54.149 The special environment is a place of voluntary study; 22:54.150 --> 22:57.730 it is a place where the Fourteenth Amendment cannot be 22:57.729 --> 22:59.679 suspended. And as they say, 22:59.682 --> 23:02.972 sort of poetically, students do not leave their 23:02.968 --> 23:05.038 rights at the school door. 23:05.039 --> 23:08.299 And so school libraries can't be regulated in that way. 23:08.299 --> 23:12.489 But these things come up over and over, and what's interesting 23:12.485 --> 23:16.325 about that particular case is that the objection was that 23:16.328 --> 23:18.728 these books were anti-American. 23:18.730 --> 23:22.000 How far have we come since Black Boy had to be 23:22.004 --> 23:23.764 truncated? Not that far, 23:23.762 --> 23:27.772 in certain sectors of the country, in certain ways of 23:27.774 --> 23:30.204 thinking. Black Boy was cut in 23:30.200 --> 23:33.700 half because it didn't seem like a good reflection on America. 23:33.700 --> 23:37.750 It's still a problem for some books in being accepted and 23:37.753 --> 23:38.263 read. 23:38.260 --> 23:44.290 23:44.289 --> 23:47.099 So, I began to talk about market constraints, 23:47.103 --> 23:50.683 and I want to just say a little bit more about that and how it 23:50.678 --> 23:54.018 affects the writing of literature and the publishing, 23:54.019 --> 23:58.689 even before you arrive at the bookstore. 23:58.690 --> 24:03.050 Traditional publishing has undergone a huge consolidation 24:03.048 --> 24:05.668 since the 1980s. So, there are large 24:05.672 --> 24:09.472 multinational corporations that have bought up publishers. 24:09.470 --> 24:14.180 The one signal example of this is when Bertelsmann, 24:14.175 --> 24:18.405 a German company, bought up Pantheon Books. 24:18.410 --> 24:23.120 This is written about in a book. 24:23.119 --> 24:24.749 Now I'm forgetting the name of it. 24:24.750 --> 24:29.350 It'll come to me. 24:29.349 --> 24:35.179 One of the Pantheon editors led a revolt when this happened. 24:35.180 --> 24:42.100 It became clear that Bertelsmann was going to impose 24:42.102 --> 24:49.842 a new standard of profitability on the lists in Pantheon's 24:49.839 --> 24:53.899 portfolio. So it used to be in old-time 24:53.897 --> 24:58.827 publishing, sort of mid century publishing and up to the 1980s, 24:58.829 --> 25:02.299 that the list, a literature list (and that's 25:02.297 --> 25:06.327 the list of books that any publisher publishes), 25:06.330 --> 25:11.490 the list should be profitable. 25:11.490 --> 25:16.860 That does not mean that every single item on that list will be 25:16.864 --> 25:21.204 profitable. So editors in the old-time mode 25:21.203 --> 25:27.073 could work with writers who they found to be difficult and 25:27.074 --> 25:29.744 interesting, path breaking, 25:29.735 --> 25:33.155 unusual, not catering to what was popular. 25:33.160 --> 25:37.440 They could work with writers and cultivate them and they knew 25:37.440 --> 25:41.440 that they were taking on a book--say it's a collection of 25:41.435 --> 25:44.775 short stories; these are notoriously hard to 25:44.782 --> 25:49.052 sell--they were taking on a book that was not going to make a 25:49.048 --> 25:51.898 profit. But then they would also take 25:51.895 --> 25:56.015 on The Joy of Cooking--or The Joy of Sex, 25:56.019 --> 26:00.479 since it's censorship day--and they knew that the 26:00.476 --> 26:05.486 profit from a popular book could help to carry and balance those 26:05.490 --> 26:09.860 less profitable books, or not-at-all-profitable books, 26:09.863 --> 26:11.873 that they had on the list. 26:11.869 --> 26:17.719 So, there was a management of lists that could be tilted to 26:17.715 --> 26:23.355 allow different kinds of books into the public domain. 26:23.359 --> 26:27.979 When publishers were taken over by multinational 26:27.978 --> 26:32.958 corporations that were very distant from the interaction 26:32.960 --> 26:38.890 between an editor and a writer, they looked at the numbers and 26:38.885 --> 26:43.105 they started to demand that every book have its 26:43.110 --> 26:48.620 profit-and-loss analysis and that a very strict regulation be 26:48.620 --> 26:53.760 followed in ensuring that all titles were going to make a 26:53.764 --> 26:56.864 profit. That's a very different 26:56.861 --> 27:01.431 standard, and it had a huge impact on what kind of latitude 27:01.428 --> 27:05.918 editors had in working with writers who they thought might 27:05.917 --> 27:09.537 be a little unusual or not so marketable. 27:09.539 --> 27:13.899 At the same time, agents began to have a role in 27:13.898 --> 27:16.308 the publishing business. 27:16.309 --> 27:20.759 In the 1950s, when editors were encouraging 27:20.758 --> 27:25.628 literary writers directly, they had a much more 27:25.630 --> 27:30.290 collaborative relationship with writers. 27:30.289 --> 27:34.199 But as profit became more important writers needed to turn 27:34.201 --> 27:38.461 to someone else who wasn't going to pressure them to follow the 27:38.455 --> 27:42.815 market, and agents came to have a role. 27:42.820 --> 27:43.960 Now, it's interesting. 27:43.960 --> 27:49.970 There is yet a third role that has just begun to emerge in this 27:49.973 --> 27:53.663 structure, and that is of the coach, 27:53.660 --> 27:57.110 the writing coach: so you can now pay big bucks, 27:57.107 --> 28:00.627 if you're a writer, to have someone who will call 28:00.629 --> 28:04.149 you up every week and say, "Hey, how's the book going? 28:04.150 --> 28:05.600 Let's talk about your ideas. 28:05.600 --> 28:08.360 Are you writing today?" 28:08.359 --> 28:12.929 It used to be that agents took that kind of active role. 28:12.930 --> 28:16.750 Well, agents are very busy now, with their clients selling 28:16.751 --> 28:18.831 movie rights and such things. 28:18.829 --> 28:25.099 Movie rights are where a lot of the profit in a book sale come 28:25.100 --> 28:28.190 from. So, agents began to be what the 28:28.187 --> 28:32.007 old-time editor was, and I think we have yet to see 28:32.006 --> 28:36.356 whether coaches become what agents used to be in turn. 28:36.359 --> 28:40.749 But, as profitability becomes more and more of an issue in 28:40.747 --> 28:46.667 selling a book to a publisher, there is an ever ongoing search 28:46.665 --> 28:53.235 for that person who will be the ally of the literary in this 28:53.241 --> 28:59.261 process.I've talked about the consolidation in book 28:59.260 --> 29:02.180 selling, the rise of the chains, 29:02.176 --> 29:05.676 and I've also talked about those financial relationships 29:05.683 --> 29:08.173 between book sellers and publishers, 29:08.170 --> 29:09.430 were space is bought. 29:09.430 --> 29:13.320 They also have incentives that publishers give, 29:13.322 --> 29:17.392 sometimes give money for readings to be held at a 29:17.385 --> 29:20.215 bookstore. So, sometimes those things are 29:20.220 --> 29:23.300 bought also, those kinds of events, promotional events. 29:23.300 --> 29:30.090 29:30.089 --> 29:33.929 There is, of course, this whole context of the rise 29:33.929 --> 29:37.309 of the internet, and all kinds of competition 29:37.308 --> 29:40.378 from the film industry, other media. 29:40.380 --> 29:45.630 Market constraints are sometimes paradoxically produced 29:45.633 --> 29:50.403 by that overload that we get from the internet. 29:50.400 --> 29:59.460 So what that means is the culture is finding new arbiters. 29:59.460 --> 30:04.580 So, you have this huge volume of information and cultural 30:04.577 --> 30:07.407 offerings being given to you. 30:07.410 --> 30:12.550 In that welter of information we all look to some arbiter to 30:12.546 --> 30:15.676 tell us, "How do I sort this out?" 30:15.680 --> 30:20.880 Nobody has the time to read all the blogs and decide which one 30:20.881 --> 30:23.781 they're going to read regularly. 30:23.779 --> 30:26.849 So you might get a link from someone else's page, 30:26.854 --> 30:29.934 someone you are friends with, someone you admire, 30:29.928 --> 30:32.168 a writer you've seen elsewhere. 30:32.170 --> 30:35.610 You might read certain print publications and from there 30:35.611 --> 30:38.741 follow them in to the internet, into cyberspace. 30:38.740 --> 30:42.320 Most books now come with a web address somewhere on them. 30:42.320 --> 30:45.830 A lot of films do; most films do. 30:45.829 --> 30:49.769 This is still in a period of development. 30:49.769 --> 30:54.679 How profit gets connected up with those arbiters isn't yet 30:54.683 --> 30:59.603 very clear, so companies are experimenting with paying for 30:59.596 --> 31:02.636 placements, like when you do the Google 31:02.643 --> 31:06.353 search and there are certain Google-sponsored links at the 31:06.345 --> 31:09.355 top. That's like having the space in 31:09.357 --> 31:13.067 the front of your store bought and paid for. 31:13.069 --> 31:15.899 So you think that you're getting--or, I think we all know 31:15.895 --> 31:19.175 that those are sponsored links, now, but at the beginning 31:19.180 --> 31:23.260 people didn't really quite know that, so it looked like you were 31:23.262 --> 31:27.282 getting-- the product of a disinterested electronic search, 31:27.279 --> 31:30.379 but in fact you were getting a promotion. 31:30.380 --> 31:34.980 So the internet experiments with all kinds of both new and 31:34.982 --> 31:39.832 tried and true ways of using money to create prominence among 31:39.827 --> 31:42.247 the welter of information. 31:42.250 --> 31:46.400 Then there is another rising problem in question, 31:46.397 --> 31:51.097 and that is of intellectual property and access as books are 31:51.103 --> 31:53.683 digitized. So, I don't know if you have 31:53.683 --> 31:56.243 heard of the Google Book Project, and also all the 31:56.244 --> 31:57.974 digital libraries initiatives. 31:57.970 --> 32:02.230 There are various ones, but the Google Book Project is 32:02.227 --> 32:05.357 digitizing with a special technology. 32:05.359 --> 32:08.839 People think it's probably a robotic technology--it's kept 32:08.838 --> 32:12.438 secret--for scanning books that are in the public domain, 32:12.440 --> 32:15.390 and they've made agreements with lots of university 32:15.390 --> 32:18.620 libraries including Stanford, Cornell, Michigan, 32:18.624 --> 32:23.234 to digitize all the books that are beyond the copyright that 32:23.227 --> 32:27.827 are in their collections to make a huge digital library. 32:27.829 --> 32:33.019 And the dream is that this will be a sort of bonanza of access. 32:33.020 --> 32:34.760 It'll be searchable. 32:34.760 --> 32:36.290 It'll be--well, maybe--free. 32:36.289 --> 32:40.929 It'll be accessible all over the world. 32:40.930 --> 32:45.680 So, there is a dream here that's very noble. 32:45.680 --> 32:50.600 Publishers and writers' groups, unions, are very worried about 32:50.602 --> 32:55.382 copyright infringement, because Google has stepped over 32:55.378 --> 33:00.178 the line and is interested in pushing the envelope into 33:00.183 --> 33:03.123 scanning copyrighted material. 33:03.119 --> 33:08.559 So, what has started to happen is that individual publishers 33:08.558 --> 33:14.088 have made deals with Google to let Google digitize their list 33:14.089 --> 33:18.129 for a fee. But, see, now that money starts 33:18.133 --> 33:23.203 to come into this arrangement, it starts to look less like 33:23.195 --> 33:27.365 free access and more like an access that is, 33:27.369 --> 33:31.989 once again, shaped by these financial considerations. 33:31.990 --> 33:36.370 It's not at all clear how the nobility of the project and the 33:36.365 --> 33:40.225 financial context are going to work themselves out, 33:40.230 --> 33:43.800 and it's not at all clear yet what the general approach of 33:43.796 --> 33:46.796 educational institutions will be towards this. 33:46.799 --> 33:50.209 Yale has not signed onto this, for example, 33:50.208 --> 33:56.008 so some universities have; some haven't. 33:56.009 --> 33:59.579 These are huge, looming questions that will 33:59.575 --> 34:03.135 impact what we get to see as literature, 34:03.140 --> 34:08.100 how much access we have among the vast choices that the 34:08.099 --> 34:11.129 internet makes available to us. 34:11.130 --> 34:15.600 I want to just mention one more thing, and that's about 34:15.598 --> 34:17.368 internationalization. 34:17.369 --> 34:23.529 One thing that you didn't probably see at the bookstore is 34:23.528 --> 34:28.408 fiction in translation, contemporary fiction in 34:28.411 --> 34:32.681 translation, notoriously impossible to sell. 34:32.679 --> 34:38.309 There is a press called the New Press that was founded after 34:38.309 --> 34:43.459 some of the Pantheon editors left and they founded this 34:43.461 --> 34:46.781 nonprofit press. That is the only kind of 34:46.778 --> 34:50.118 fiction that the New Press publishes, contemporary fiction 34:50.123 --> 34:53.413 in translation, because they knew that only a 34:53.410 --> 34:56.180 nonprofit press could publish this. 34:56.180 --> 34:58.050 It will never sell. 34:58.050 --> 35:01.500 One of the objections to the Google Book Project is that the 35:01.504 --> 35:04.084 vast majority of its texts are in English, 35:04.079 --> 35:09.249 and it seems to present an English-centric vision of the 35:09.250 --> 35:13.200 world's knowledge, 'cause it does have pretensions 35:13.200 --> 35:16.340 to be the repository of the world's knowledge. 35:16.340 --> 35:18.700 In the reception of literature there are other 35:18.699 --> 35:21.489 forces, and here's when we start to move in to the realm of 35:21.492 --> 35:22.602 The Human Stain. 35:22.599 --> 35:26.429 In the 1990s, there was a very lively and 35:26.425 --> 35:31.465 often acrimonious debate in academia and among intellectual 35:31.467 --> 35:36.337 commentators about whether literature was the purveyor of 35:36.335 --> 35:38.645 ideology, political ideology. 35:38.650 --> 35:42.010 35:42.010 --> 35:44.370 So, the question is, does literature have a message 35:44.372 --> 35:45.792 that it's trying to tell us? 35:45.789 --> 35:51.239 And one way to think about this is to think about English 125, 35:51.241 --> 35:55.091 major British poets, the picture of what the 35:55.085 --> 35:58.655 old-fashioned canon might look like. 35:58.660 --> 36:02.010 It's all white guys. 36:02.010 --> 36:05.110 I think there might be one woman that you can put on the 36:05.107 --> 36:07.357 syllabus in the Spring, a modern poet. 36:07.360 --> 36:09.460 You can probably teach Bishop. 36:09.460 --> 36:13.200 I think people do teach Bishop in the second term of English 36:13.199 --> 36:15.589 125. Did those poets represent the 36:15.590 --> 36:17.670 communication of an ideology? 36:17.670 --> 36:21.970 36:21.969 --> 36:26.459 Because a lot of contemporary fiction became the object of 36:26.464 --> 36:30.884 contention: along with these very traditional syllabi, 36:30.880 --> 36:33.580 are you going to include Toni Morrison on your syllabus? 36:33.579 --> 36:38.039 Well, this is no longer controversial. 36:38.039 --> 36:40.859 She's such an overwhelmingly powerful author, 36:40.858 --> 36:43.418 at this time, by the sheer quality of her 36:43.420 --> 36:47.520 work, but early in her career it would have been a question. 36:47.519 --> 36:50.179 One of the striking things, of course, about American 36:50.177 --> 36:52.737 fiction in the second half of the twentieth century, 36:52.739 --> 36:55.819 and into the twenty-first, is the demographic really does 36:55.824 --> 36:58.334 change. Writers of color are much more 36:58.332 --> 37:02.832 prominent; there are many more points of 37:02.834 --> 37:06.474 view present in that canon. 37:06.470 --> 37:07.980 So, is literature sociological? 37:07.980 --> 37:13.150 Does it speak to society, or is it an aesthetic object, 37:13.147 --> 37:17.837 something that we should understand as part of the 37:17.836 --> 37:20.416 history of an art form? 37:20.420 --> 37:22.500 Do you have to choose between these two? 37:22.500 --> 37:26.190 And I cite here what became an incredibly important book. 37:26.190 --> 37:30.300 It's really a wonderful book by actually a Yale graduate, 37:30.304 --> 37:32.904 John Guillory. The title is Cultural 37:32.904 --> 37:36.114 Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation, 37:36.110 --> 37:39.660 published right at the height of the culture wars, 37:39.660 --> 37:41.000 of the canon wars. 37:41.000 --> 37:46.170 In it, he argues that in the mid twentieth century, 37:46.168 --> 37:50.818 literature was a kind of social elite good, 37:50.820 --> 37:54.980 and that the aesthetic, if it had an ideology, 37:54.976 --> 37:59.036 it was an ideology of bourgeois privilege. 37:59.039 --> 38:03.109 So, it wasn't that the content of particular poems would be 38:03.109 --> 38:07.319 communicating something about an elite bourgeois ideology, 38:07.320 --> 38:11.030 but rather that the very act of being in the institution where 38:11.034 --> 38:13.474 you would study such a thing (at Yale, 38:13.469 --> 38:20.069 in English 125) that was the repository of the elite power of 38:20.070 --> 38:23.390 these texts. So it had much more to do with 38:23.387 --> 38:26.877 institutions than it did about the content of any particular 38:26.882 --> 38:29.792 literary work. And it makes some very 38:29.790 --> 38:34.800 persuasive readings of canonical poems that demonstrate the 38:34.800 --> 38:37.910 undecidability of their ideology, 38:37.909 --> 38:41.169 or the way that they resist how they've been cast, 38:41.166 --> 38:44.086 how those poems have been cast by critics. 38:44.090 --> 38:49.500 38:49.500 --> 38:54.420 There are also ways that novels were received and 38:54.420 --> 38:59.340 complained about that become part of this picture. 38:59.340 --> 39:01.320 So, we've talked about Black Boy. 39:01.320 --> 39:05.760 I mentioned how controversial Woman Warrior 39:05.763 --> 39:10.483 was because of its impurity as a Chinese text. 39:10.480 --> 39:15.690 Toni Morrison became a real advocate of writing by women of 39:15.692 --> 39:20.282 color, in particular, and also as a literary critic 39:20.275 --> 39:25.215 she mounted an argument about how whiteness functions as a 39:25.219 --> 39:29.989 central part of the traditional canon of literature. 39:29.989 --> 39:34.429 And she wrote Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary 39:34.433 --> 39:38.033 Imagination in 1992, a very influential text. 39:38.030 --> 39:41.560 Internationally, we had the phenomenon of Salman 39:41.560 --> 39:45.540 Rushdie's persecution, the fatwa issued against him by 39:45.541 --> 39:50.121 the Ayatollah Khomeini after the publication of The Satanic 39:50.123 --> 39:53.693 Verses, for its depiction of Islam. 39:53.690 --> 39:59.260 That kind of persecution becomes a feature of this more 39:59.261 --> 40:04.731 internationalized debate about what is okay to say, 40:04.730 --> 40:08.400 especially about religions, and then of course we have the 40:08.400 --> 40:11.920 Danish cartoon episode, with the cartoons of Muhammad 40:11.923 --> 40:14.963 that are now seemingly…it's resurgent. 40:14.960 --> 40:19.580 There is another question about a film about Muhammad's life, 40:19.575 --> 40:22.685 I believe it is. Then there is Roth's work, 40:22.692 --> 40:26.892 and here's where I just want to meditate for a minute on Roth. 40:26.889 --> 40:30.789 Philip Roth's work has been defined by these kinds of 40:30.794 --> 40:34.424 objections, that censure that I was talking about. 40:34.420 --> 40:38.620 He was very widely acclaimed in 1960 when Goodbye, 40:38.623 --> 40:42.103 Columbus won the National Book Award. 40:42.099 --> 40:47.239 Goodbye, Columbus is a set of stories mostly about 40:47.239 --> 40:52.839 young Jewish protagonists living in a Jewish context in Jewish 40:52.837 --> 40:56.597 communities in Newark or in New York. 40:56.599 --> 41:01.959 It included a story called "The Conversion of the Jews" in which 41:01.958 --> 41:05.848 a young boy (actually, well, a little older than young 41:05.847 --> 41:08.527 boy, maybe he's a teenager), Ozzie Freedman, 41:08.530 --> 41:14.220 becomes extremely agitated because all his questions to his 41:14.220 --> 41:20.010 family and to his rabbi about Christianity are dismissed; 41:20.010 --> 41:21.730 he finally comes to be punished for asking these kinds of 41:21.731 --> 41:24.501 questions. So, Ozzie stages his revolt by 41:24.502 --> 41:28.992 climbing to the top of the synagogue roof and threatening 41:28.987 --> 41:33.397 to jump off if his family, all the assembled students from 41:33.403 --> 41:35.563 his Hebrew school, and the rabbi, 41:35.564 --> 41:38.134 won't kneel down and pray to Jesus, 41:38.130 --> 41:42.590 which of course they do because he's about to jump off. 41:42.590 --> 41:46.080 This story was quite controversial, 41:46.083 --> 41:51.323 as you might imagine, so there was a taste of Roth's 41:51.323 --> 41:57.183 vexed relationship to Jewish community in that story. 41:57.179 --> 42:01.679 So, it was all about how a hidebound Jewish community was 42:01.677 --> 42:05.927 preventing and circumscribing the curiosity of a young 42:05.934 --> 42:09.304 American boy, and it really highlighted 42:09.300 --> 42:11.060 Ozzie's Americanness. 42:11.059 --> 42:14.619 And Roth has always emphasized that about himself: 42:14.619 --> 42:18.249 He's an American writer.Like Saul Bellow 42:18.250 --> 42:22.610 before him--Saul Bellow had been his mentor and teacher for a 42:22.608 --> 42:26.818 brief time at the University of Chicago--Bellow insisted on 42:26.821 --> 42:30.161 bringing into American literature the voice and 42:30.162 --> 42:33.942 sensibility of an immigrant Jewish family. 42:33.940 --> 42:38.280 Bellow was from a Russian Jewish family that immigrated to 42:38.276 --> 42:41.316 Canada in the early twentieth century. 42:41.320 --> 42:44.500 Bellow was told he would neve--because of his heritage, 42:44.498 --> 42:48.088 when he was at the University of Chicago--he was told he would 42:48.088 --> 42:51.618 never have the ear for language that would allow him to write 42:51.620 --> 42:54.640 beautifully, because of his linguistic 42:54.640 --> 42:57.620 background and because he was Jewish. 42:57.619 --> 43:02.539 Well, Bellow pioneered the way of bringing in a particularly 43:02.535 --> 43:07.285 Jewish and European notion of literature and a sensibility 43:07.285 --> 43:12.365 about the body that could enter American literature and change 43:12.367 --> 43:17.447 it from its either WASPish or southern genteel quality. 43:17.449 --> 43:20.409 And, certainly, this was a very powerful 43:20.407 --> 43:24.577 current, and Roth is the continuation of that current in 43:24.577 --> 43:26.167 American letters. 43:26.170 --> 43:30.610 Roth comes out in 1969 with Portnoy's Complaint. 43:30.610 --> 43:33.090 Portnoy is quite a novel. 43:33.090 --> 43:35.840 It's really all about masturbation. 43:35.840 --> 43:40.370 It's about Alex Portnoy jacking off in the bathroom to every 43:40.369 --> 43:43.669 possible provocative thought he can have, 43:43.670 --> 43:49.180 and it's told as if to Alex's psychiatrist in a sort of 43:49.179 --> 43:55.069 ranting, over-the-top style, very explicit. 43:55.070 --> 44:01.000 This got Roth into big trouble, partly because Alex lives in a 44:00.999 --> 44:06.839 very tight-knit Jewish family, and this enters into the whole 44:06.838 --> 44:09.838 story of his obsession with sex. 44:09.840 --> 44:12.670 Irving Howe, a very prominent Jewish 44:12.673 --> 44:15.593 literary critic, public intellectual, 44:15.587 --> 44:19.387 wrote a famous essay in 1972 called "Philip Roth 44:19.391 --> 44:23.521 Reconsidered." And he basically said that the 44:23.519 --> 44:28.129 adulation given to Roth was entirely inappropriate--he now 44:28.133 --> 44:32.153 saw on reflection, now that he had read 44:32.150 --> 44:35.920 Portnoy's Complaint--because Roth had 44:35.915 --> 44:40.725 an unfocused hostility towards the Jewish community. 44:40.730 --> 44:43.040 This enraged Roth. 44:43.039 --> 44:50.969 That rage fueled huge portions of his career. 44:50.969 --> 44:55.339 When, in The Human Stain, Roth has Coleman Silk say, 44:55.336 --> 44:59.096 "All of Western literature began with a quarrel, 44:59.099 --> 45:04.819 the wrath of Achilles," in a certain way he is describing his 45:04.824 --> 45:07.214 own origin as a writer. 45:07.210 --> 45:11.890 Now, if you'll go with me: Do you have just five minutes? 45:11.890 --> 45:15.240 I want to get to one last point. 45:15.239 --> 45:19.429 Roth, in case you haven't noticed, is a very misogynist 45:19.431 --> 45:23.491 writer. Did you notice? 45:23.490 --> 45:25.740 Hard to miss that. 45:25.740 --> 45:28.830 Why do I like Roth? 45:28.829 --> 45:33.879 In this context where writers are taken to task for their 45:33.882 --> 45:37.132 offensiveness on cultural grounds, 45:37.130 --> 45:40.120 on gender grounds, on the grounds of 45:40.115 --> 45:43.775 identification, how can you like someone who 45:43.782 --> 45:47.902 has this major flaw, who seems to see all women as 45:47.900 --> 45:50.830 sexual objects, who is unembarrassed about 45:50.828 --> 45:53.968 saying his writing is about a man's life, 45:53.970 --> 45:58.770 the life of men; it's not about the life of 45:58.765 --> 46:01.155 women? So, why do I like Roth? 46:01.159 --> 46:03.279 This has actually baffled me for years. 46:03.280 --> 46:05.300 Why doesn't it bother me? 46:05.300 --> 46:10.370 There are parts in The Human Stain that really are quite 46:10.372 --> 46:12.502 amazingly objectionable. 46:12.500 --> 46:16.280 My favorite is the gift of the molestation. 46:16.280 --> 46:18.730 Do you remember this when they are talking about Faunia, 46:18.725 --> 46:21.615 and how great she is in bed, and what she is like at 46:21.623 --> 46:24.343 breakfast afterwards, and they speculate, 46:24.344 --> 46:28.304 Coleman and Nathan, that maybe that was the gift of 46:28.303 --> 46:30.373 her having been molested? 46:30.369 --> 46:33.709 Well, molestation is never a gift. 46:33.710 --> 46:37.680 If there is anything that comes from living through a hard life, 46:37.678 --> 46:41.268 it is not the gift of the molestation, but the gift of the 46:41.269 --> 46:42.969 person who survived it. 46:42.970 --> 46:47.630 This is insane. Why do I still like Roth? 46:47.630 --> 46:51.540 Well, partly it's that, like no one else, 46:51.539 --> 46:56.719 he can take me into a voice, seamlessly draw me in. 46:56.719 --> 47:00.879 Some of his ranting voices are more or less convincing. 47:00.880 --> 47:03.120 Some are more or less caricatured; 47:03.119 --> 47:07.019 of course the women's are more caricatured than the men's. 47:07.019 --> 47:09.629 Nevertheless, he can take me in there, 47:09.628 --> 47:13.508 and the way his sentences work are really sometimes just 47:13.505 --> 47:15.475 astonishingly beautiful. 47:15.480 --> 47:18.390 There is a part of The Human Stain that I particularly 47:18.392 --> 47:21.502 like, and you'll get to it as you finish the novel for Monday, 47:21.500 --> 47:24.680 and that's when he's describing Coleman and Faunia at 47:24.675 --> 47:27.655 Tanglewood. So, just think about that when 47:27.657 --> 47:30.937 you read that, pause for a minute over that. 47:30.940 --> 47:34.800 I think what it is ultimately is that I'm very moved by two 47:34.802 --> 47:38.872 things in Roth's writing; that is the meditation on 47:38.869 --> 47:43.229 mortality and what goes along with that, I think: 47:43.226 --> 47:47.216 the focus on and the dignity of the body. 47:47.219 --> 47:51.769 There is a very Whitmanian sense to his understanding of 47:51.768 --> 47:55.158 sex and the body in all its complexity. 47:55.160 --> 47:58.770 I appreciate that. 47:58.769 --> 48:03.139 I am moved by that sense of the inaccessibility of the other 48:03.143 --> 48:07.593 person--this is from my lecture on Monday--the way you always 48:07.590 --> 48:11.000 get the other fellow's life somehow wrong. 48:11.000 --> 48:13.420 That speaks to me about the difference between my 48:13.419 --> 48:16.039 consciousness and anyone I encounter in the world. 48:16.039 --> 48:21.059 That to me is profound and moving. 48:21.059 --> 48:23.749 It reminds me that, for all Roth's linguistic 48:23.746 --> 48:27.036 energy and skill as a writer, there is still that great 48:27.043 --> 48:29.733 divide that language is trying to cross. 48:29.730 --> 48:33.870 And that's what I appreciate about literature in general, 48:33.872 --> 48:37.722 that it's that great attempt to cross that divide. 48:37.719 --> 48:40.359 I can overlook the misogyny for those things. 48:40.360 --> 48:45.070 Am I like Roth? Probably not, 48:45.066 --> 48:49.106 but that's why I like him. 48:49.110 --> 48:55.150 I read to see what I'm not, not to see what I am, 48:55.148 --> 49:00.178 and so Roth's very difference from me, 49:00.179 --> 49:03.129 his misogyny, is part of what allows me to 49:03.131 --> 49:06.371 feel that I am entering, however partially, 49:06.369 --> 49:11.469 however always in a compromised way, into the consciousness of 49:11.473 --> 49:14.823 another person through that beautiful, 49:14.820 --> 49:19.050 amazing medium of language. 49:19.050 --> 49:22.210 So, that's why I like Roth, and I would encourage you to 49:22.210 --> 49:25.540 think about your own responses to the books that we've read 49:25.543 --> 49:28.733 together, think about what it means about 49:28.731 --> 49:32.671 you as a reader that you respond in certain ways. 49:32.670 --> 49:35.000 So we'll pick this up on Monday; thank you for waiting.