Notes of Dissent: Lessons from a Family Volvo
Through drill, artists have a means of exploring and challenging the political marginalization of their voices.
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Posts Tagged: censorship
Total Freedom: A Conversation with Theresa Griffin Kennedy
Theresa Griffin Kennedy discusses her new story collection, BURNSIDE FIELD LIZARD.
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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Olzhas Suleimenov and the Power of Antinuclear Activism
Suleimenov the nomad, the climber of high walls of adventure.
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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This Week In Indie Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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Come for Me, Katie Roiphe
Backlash isn’t new to our Internet culture, but with Twitter and hot takes it does come for us a little faster.
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What to Read When You Want to Read an “Uncomfortable” Book
Authors whose works have been challenged or banned give recommendations on other “uncomfortable” books that will make you a better person for having read them.
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
This Los Angeles bookstore is confronting censorship in Iran with a focus on books banned in the nation. Zhongshu Bookstore in China is designed to wow customers with its bold interior.
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Libraries Are the Real Punk Rock
Maybe I was only in the eighth grade, but I was ready to stand up to anyone who tried to threaten the ideal of intellectual freedom.
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Looking for Russia in America
Everyone around us is speaking Russian, and I feel like we are in Russia, the old one, before the wall came down. For a moment, I even feel like I belong.
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The Rumpus Interview with Robert Glancy
Robert Glancy discusses his sophomore novel, Please Do Not Disturb, growing up under a dictatorship, borrowing and stealing from reality, and his love of proverbs.
...moreWriters Resist: #LouderTogether
This Sunday, January 15, 2 p.m., PEN America hosts the flagship New York City event of a national rallying effort under the banner of WRITERS RESIST. This literary protest will bring together hundreds of writers and their fellow New Yorkers on the steps of the New York Public Library in a collective stand to defend free […]
...moreThis Week in Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most pertinent and relevant content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe it to yourself, your communities, and your humanity to contribute whatever you can, even if it is just […]
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
Just announced today: beloved Brooklyn bookstore BookCourt is closing after 35 years in business. Independent booksellers were the focus of a panel at the Miami Book Fair—discussion focused on how big business was surprised that small business strategies could be useful in selling books. Kyoto, Japan is home to a bookstore hostel with eighteen bunks built into […]
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“I Will Climb, Too”
I assume he’s going to drop us off, wish us luck, and speed away. But instead Little Wei slams on his brakes, turns off the ignition, and says, “I will climb, too.”
...moreCanceling Donald Trump
And this isn’t so much about art as it is about using art in the worst way. This is a Pro-Trump rally masquerading as a performance art piece that is as vicious an assault on any progressive political sensibility as it is on the less market-oriented forms of underfunded public art forms: social practice, performance […]
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
A state run bookstore in Shanghai is ripping out pages from Webster’s Dictionary that include a reference to Taiwan. The Dallas Morning News checks in with Deep Vellum Books, the bookstore offshoot of Deep Vellum Publishing that owner Will Evans sought a business partner to keep going. Local news in Madison, Connecticut goes inside twenty-six-year-old […]
...moreThe Past and Present of Banned Books
‘Banned books’ sounds like a thing of the past. But over at Lit Hub, Amy Brady details the ways that the fight against censorship continues in libraries and schools today: If school administrators are attempting to limit even elective reading, what does the future hold for students who want access to all books, classic and […]
...moreThought Police Are Lurking
Cooper tried reaching out to the technology giant via phone and numerous emails, but has only received a generic statement about a “violation of the terms of service agreement”; he has not been offered any precise explanation. At the end of last July, writer Dennis Cooper discovered that his blog, which he began in 2002 […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Raphael Cormack
Raphael Cormack discusses The Book of Khartoum: A City in Short Fiction, a collection of short stories he co-edited and translated, the editorial process, and the responsibilities that accompany translating writing.
...moreCensorship in Ukraine
During anti-government protests in the Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, Oleh Shynkarenko, a journalist and blogger, found himself turning to Facebook after some of his blog posts were deleted, presumably by security forces. What he shared was a novel about about a man whose brain was controlled by the Russian government, published in 100-word snippets on the social […]
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The Rumpus Interview with John Reed
John Reed discusses Snowball’s Chance, his parody of Animal Farm, and the lawsuits, debates, and discoveries that followed the book’s publication.
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
One of the missing Hong Kong booksellers has been returned, and gave a speech warning about the power of China’s central government and the waning independence of Hong Kong. Tiny, the cat that lives in Brooklyn’s Community Bookstore, had a big adventure in the city—he disappeared, causing panic among the store’s employees, before deciding to […]
...moreLiberal Censorship
In May, Portland’s school board voted to ban textbooks that questioned the severity and human causes of climate change, drawing criticism not only from the right, but from free-speech advocates as well: “Social studies texts accurately describing the political debate around fossil fuels and climate change, for instance, would presumably contain comments from individuals who […]
...morePeter Thiel’s War on Free Speech: A Rumpus Roundup
Last week, tech billionaire Peter Thiel admitted to funding lawsuits against Gawker Media, including the lawsuit brought by Hulk Hogan. Hogan won a $140 million judgment against Gawker after the site published a small portion of a recording of Hogan having sex with a friend’s wife and talking about eating too much sushi. Suspicions of […]
...moreSave the Children
Graeme Whiting, headmaster of the Acorn School (motto: “Have courage for the truth”) of Nailsworth, Great Britain, recently published a blog post condemning “sensational” fantasy novels such as the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Hunger Games series that feature “dark,” “insensitive,” and “addictive” subjects. At the LA Times, Michael Schaub wrote about the […]
...moreTwo Bangladeshi Writers Murdered
Two secular journalists in Bangladesh were murdered recently, and these are far from the first incidents: These are only the latest in a recent string of killings of writers and journalists in Bangladesh. In a searing editorial Monday, the Dhaka Tribune called on authorities to work harder to arrest and prosecute the killers, who frequently […]
...moreCensoring Censorship
Emma Garman discusses the ability of UK’s elite to pay lawyers to keep their names out of the press. She raises the topics of censorship, public interest, and the availability of these resources to people of all classes: The loftiest interpretation of public interest is our common concern with the workings of government, but we’re […]
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