My project is going to center around censorship and banned books, but I am not sure where to narrow it down. There are a number of different fields that it encompasses:
Education - Dealing with censorship in the classroom
Writers - Authors may write according to how others will read, rather than writing how they want
Media/Communications - How censorship impacts society and the media
Law - What allows people to ban books, freedom of speech, power struggle between people
Psychology/Sociology - Why do people request censorship? Personal lives, power, impact...
Community - Schools and libraries, free service, first amendment rights
Marketing - Publishing and book sales
My concern is that there will not be enough material for me to research in this field, and that the topic will grow boring after the first few pages. I need to find the spark among all of the research that will set it apart from just censorship and banned books, but actually grab the reader's attention. (Maybe something along the lines of choosing books for the classroom, or how censorship impacts teens...)
I wouldn't worry about not having enough material for you to research at this point. Currently, your field is broad enough that there's probably too much to look at. Once you start narrowing down some more, that may change, but for now, I'd focus on focusing. Hah.
ReplyDeleteI like all the different branches that are tied into your topic and I think what you have here can lead in a lot of different directions, which is great. Eventually you're going to have to decide which direction you want to go in, though. I like some of the captions you have for these fields. "How censorship impacts society and the media" is a little broad, but "Why do people request censorship?" sounds like a much more interesting question, because, I honestly don't have a good answer and would like to know one. I think by looking at these subfields and asking specific questions about them, you'll help find that "spark."
I agree with Gabe. I don't think you'll have any trouble finding research on your topic. If you do find research lacking on a certain portion of it perhaps you could create your own study and discover something new.
ReplyDeleteI think why people request censorship is interesting. That also ties right into if they request it how is that received within schools, and does censorship violate our first amendment rights?
I personally can remember being a freshman in high school and having several students whose parents did not want them to read the books that we were reading in class. It makes me wonder what impact that has on their education and do they end up not having to read those books. Maybe that's ok if that only occurs once, but what if it occurs repeatedly? What impact does that have on the quality of their education vs. the other students?
I think the next thing that you should do is determine whose perspective you want to look at this issue from. Is it from the authors, the students, the educators, etc. and maybe that will help guide to toward which question you want to ask.
You're an education major, right? If so, I would definitely look into censorship in the schools. It's something that a lot of people can relate to because they probably came across that issue at some point during their school years and it's something that you will come across as a teacher. Even in there, there is so much that you can talk about - teachers using books for lessons, in the library, maybe even monitoring what students read, and how the parents feel about it in their child's education. I think that no matter what path you take, there will be a lot for you to discover.
ReplyDeleteI ain't know much about books and banning them. But I know one thing, my favorite book is a book that they read in schools that was banned for some time that I personally didn't read until last year on my own time called The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that I am a psychologist -well, an aspiring psychologist- I will provide an input from that field. (sort of)
The reason that they banned the book before and are making alterations to it now is because the book's use of the word "Nigger." In common parlance today, this word is quite offensive, especially when it is said about a black person from the mouth of a white person. It has it's roots in the long and gruesome history of slavery that this country hasn't really been able to get over to this day. (Think of all of the racial divides in this country that still exist.)
Now, why would we want this word erased from the book or have the book itself get banned?
The most obvious reason, though I am not sure how sound it is, is that by having the "n-word" in books for kids to read, it will encourage it's use and make them more hostile toward others of different races, namely white vs. black.
One could then retort and say, "NO! That's not the case. Huck himself uses the word plenty of times because that was apart of common parlance then. Huck ends up becoming Jim's best friend, and at one critical point in the book, Huck realizes that it is morally wrong to treat Jim as lesser than any other man, and from there on he still calls him a Nigger even though he has this realization.
I'm not saying that we should still use the word. Nope! But by erasing this word from the book, we are erasing a central part of history. Just because the word now makes us uncomfortable, doesn't mean we should keep it out of our books. It's like taking the history of slavery out of textbooks because it makes the book publisher feel guilty or uncomfortable.
I just went on a rant. Sorry.
But my final point. In 1984 (another book that was banned) Ingsoc controls the history. Because, when you control the past (ie what people know about the past), you can control the future (ie how people will behave in the future). Maybe, if you think about how folks 'at the top' would potentially benefit from book banning, in maintaining their power or control, maybe.... You would start to see why there is a bunch of fuss about it.
not just in politics, but also, see how religion plays into it. What books are sacriledge and what types of policies were made to prevent reading of said books, and who make those policies and what where their beliefs. Think Copernicus, Galileo, and all the other great scientists who, even though religious at heart, their ideas were trashed by the church and their lives were threatened because of their findings.
But the most interesting one that I think (and most relevant) is a little book by Darwin called.
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Rant, rant, rant. Bye!