Keith Smith
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199239757
- eISBN:
- 9780191705151
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199239757.003.0010
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
A cursory survey of the early 19th-century law's response to many areas of behaviour commonly regarded as socially illicit, would have generated, and did generate, much anxiety for any professional ...
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A cursory survey of the early 19th-century law's response to many areas of behaviour commonly regarded as socially illicit, would have generated, and did generate, much anxiety for any professional moralist, especially those of an Evangelical persuasion. This chapter shows that while subject to a disparate body of penalties, prostitution, gambling, and sales of indecent publications were largely undisturbed as a consequence of very low levels of law enforcement.Less
A cursory survey of the early 19th-century law's response to many areas of behaviour commonly regarded as socially illicit, would have generated, and did generate, much anxiety for any professional moralist, especially those of an Evangelical persuasion. This chapter shows that while subject to a disparate body of penalties, prostitution, gambling, and sales of indecent publications were largely undisturbed as a consequence of very low levels of law enforcement.
Ronald E. Heine
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199245512
- eISBN:
- 9780191600630
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199245517.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
Contains a translation of the third book of Jerome's commentary on Ephesians with a translation of the parallel excerpts from Origen's commentary. Book III begins with a prologue and then provides ...
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Contains a translation of the third book of Jerome's commentary on Ephesians with a translation of the parallel excerpts from Origen's commentary. Book III begins with a prologue and then provides commentary on Ephesians 4: 31–6: 24. Origen and Jerome interpret Paul's comments in this section of the epistle on subjects such as anger, sex, obscenity in actions, speech, and thought, marriage and its symbolism in relation to Christ and the Church, and household relationships. There is a major discussion, focused especially on Ephesians 6: 12, of Paul's words about the ‘wrestling’ of the Christian ‘against the cosmic powers of darkness’.Less
Contains a translation of the third book of Jerome's commentary on Ephesians with a translation of the parallel excerpts from Origen's commentary. Book III begins with a prologue and then provides commentary on Ephesians 4: 31–6: 24. Origen and Jerome interpret Paul's comments in this section of the epistle on subjects such as anger, sex, obscenity in actions, speech, and thought, marriage and its symbolism in relation to Christ and the Church, and household relationships. There is a major discussion, focused especially on Ephesians 6: 12, of Paul's words about the ‘wrestling’ of the Christian ‘against the cosmic powers of darkness’.
Jerome Neu
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195314311
- eISBN:
- 9780199871780
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195314311.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
Because speech can also be conduct, words deeds, the First Amendment cannot provide blanket protection for all offensive speech. This is especially true for what J.L. Austin calls “performative ...
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Because speech can also be conduct, words deeds, the First Amendment cannot provide blanket protection for all offensive speech. This is especially true for what J.L. Austin calls “performative utterances.” We must try to be clear on the principles at stake‐‐as claims to freedom of speech meet claims of self‐defense and provocation‐‐as we seek to draw legal boundaries to control fighting words, obscenity, and hate speech.Less
Because speech can also be conduct, words deeds, the First Amendment cannot provide blanket protection for all offensive speech. This is especially true for what J.L. Austin calls “performative utterances.” We must try to be clear on the principles at stake‐‐as claims to freedom of speech meet claims of self‐defense and provocation‐‐as we seek to draw legal boundaries to control fighting words, obscenity, and hate speech.
Edward Ashbee
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719072765
- eISBN:
- 9781781701294
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719072765.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This book considers the policy of the George W. Bush administration towards issues such as abortion, sex education, obscenity and same-sex marriage. It suggests that, although accounts have often ...
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This book considers the policy of the George W. Bush administration towards issues such as abortion, sex education, obscenity and same-sex marriage. It suggests that, although accounts have often emphasised the ties between George W. Bush and the Christian right, the administration's strategy was, at least until early 2005, largely directed towards the courting of middle-ground opinion. The study offers a detailed and comprehensive survey of policy making; assesses the political significance of moral concerns; evaluates the role of the Christian Right; and throws new light on George W. Bush's years in office and the character of his thinking.Less
This book considers the policy of the George W. Bush administration towards issues such as abortion, sex education, obscenity and same-sex marriage. It suggests that, although accounts have often emphasised the ties between George W. Bush and the Christian right, the administration's strategy was, at least until early 2005, largely directed towards the courting of middle-ground opinion. The study offers a detailed and comprehensive survey of policy making; assesses the political significance of moral concerns; evaluates the role of the Christian Right; and throws new light on George W. Bush's years in office and the character of his thinking.
Andrea Rotstein
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199286270
- eISBN:
- 9780191713330
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286270.003.0011
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The perception of Archilochus played a major role in the process of selection and reduction of the elements relevant for the categorization of iambos. Before the notion of iambos was restricted to ...
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The perception of Archilochus played a major role in the process of selection and reduction of the elements relevant for the categorization of iambos. Before the notion of iambos was restricted to the dominant feature of abuse, it was the prototype of the genre, Archilochus, who was taken to be predominantly abusive, at the expense of the thematic and functional variety of his poetry. This chapter examines the stage at which the perception of iambos as mainly abusive crystallized.Less
The perception of Archilochus played a major role in the process of selection and reduction of the elements relevant for the categorization of iambos. Before the notion of iambos was restricted to the dominant feature of abuse, it was the prototype of the genre, Archilochus, who was taken to be predominantly abusive, at the expense of the thematic and functional variety of his poetry. This chapter examines the stage at which the perception of iambos as mainly abusive crystallized.
Alan H. Sommerstein
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199554195
- eISBN:
- 9780191720604
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554195.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the extent and nature of gender-based differentiation in spoken Attic Greek between about 430 and 290 bc, using primarily the evidence of comedy. It explores differences ...
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This chapter examines the extent and nature of gender-based differentiation in spoken Attic Greek between about 430 and 290 bc, using primarily the evidence of comedy. It explores differences between the speech of men and of women, and between speech addressed to men and to women, in the areas of oaths, adjectives, address forms, obscenity, particles, and phonological features. The differences are found to be moderate in extent, but some of them clearly reflect the subordinate status of women in society; taken as a whole, gender differentiation does not significantly increase or diminish during the period considered.Less
This chapter examines the extent and nature of gender-based differentiation in spoken Attic Greek between about 430 and 290 bc, using primarily the evidence of comedy. It explores differences between the speech of men and of women, and between speech addressed to men and to women, in the areas of oaths, adjectives, address forms, obscenity, particles, and phonological features. The differences are found to be moderate in extent, but some of them clearly reflect the subordinate status of women in society; taken as a whole, gender differentiation does not significantly increase or diminish during the period considered.
Kirsten Cather
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835873
- eISBN:
- 9780824871604
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835873.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
In 2002 a manga (comic book) was for the first time successfully charged with the crime of obscenity in the Japanese courts. This book traces how this case represents the most recent in a long line ...
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In 2002 a manga (comic book) was for the first time successfully charged with the crime of obscenity in the Japanese courts. This book traces how this case represents the most recent in a long line of sensational landmark obscenity trials that have dotted the history of postwar Japan. The objects of these trials range from a highbrow literary translation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and modern adaptations and reprintings of Edo-period pornographic literary “classics” by authors such as Nagai Kafū to soft core and hard core pornographic films, including a collection of still photographs and the script from Ōshima Nagisa’s In the Realm of the Senses, as well as adult manga. At stake in each case was the establishment of a new hierarchy for law and culture, determining, in other words, to what extent the constitutional guarantee of free expression would extend to art, artist, and audience. The book draws on diverse sources, including trial transcripts and verdicts, literary and film theory, legal scholarship, and surrounding debates in artistic journals and the press. It demonstrates how legal arguments are enmeshed in a broader web of cultural forces. The book offers an original, interdisciplinary analysis that shows how art and law nurtured one another even as they clashed and demonstrates the dynamic relationship between culture and law, society and politics in postwar Japan.Less
In 2002 a manga (comic book) was for the first time successfully charged with the crime of obscenity in the Japanese courts. This book traces how this case represents the most recent in a long line of sensational landmark obscenity trials that have dotted the history of postwar Japan. The objects of these trials range from a highbrow literary translation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and modern adaptations and reprintings of Edo-period pornographic literary “classics” by authors such as Nagai Kafū to soft core and hard core pornographic films, including a collection of still photographs and the script from Ōshima Nagisa’s In the Realm of the Senses, as well as adult manga. At stake in each case was the establishment of a new hierarchy for law and culture, determining, in other words, to what extent the constitutional guarantee of free expression would extend to art, artist, and audience. The book draws on diverse sources, including trial transcripts and verdicts, literary and film theory, legal scholarship, and surrounding debates in artistic journals and the press. It demonstrates how legal arguments are enmeshed in a broader web of cultural forces. The book offers an original, interdisciplinary analysis that shows how art and law nurtured one another even as they clashed and demonstrates the dynamic relationship between culture and law, society and politics in postwar Japan.
Colin Shaw
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159377
- eISBN:
- 9780191673603
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159377.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The recent history of broadcasting on both sides of the Atlantic, characterised by a great increase in the number of services on offer to the public, has been brought about by technological advances ...
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The recent history of broadcasting on both sides of the Atlantic, characterised by a great increase in the number of services on offer to the public, has been brought about by technological advances and economic pressures. This has inevitably affected traditional forms of content regulation. The book explores the moral basis and history of such regulation as it has until now been applied to major issues of taste and decency. These include the protection of children, obscenity and bad language, and offences against religious sensibility, ‘reality’ television, and stereotyping. This book considers the different constraints (in the law, cultural customs, and self-regulation) affecting broadcasters in Britain and the United States and the means by which they have responded to them. The book describes, with examples, the operations of compliance regulations and standard controls. It also looks at the impact of the First Amendment on American broadcasting in this area. It looks at the arguments for the practicality of maintaining appropriate forms of restraint into the future. This book poses the question of how divided and diverse societies decide what is permissible to broadcast and how the issue might continue to evolve in the future.Less
The recent history of broadcasting on both sides of the Atlantic, characterised by a great increase in the number of services on offer to the public, has been brought about by technological advances and economic pressures. This has inevitably affected traditional forms of content regulation. The book explores the moral basis and history of such regulation as it has until now been applied to major issues of taste and decency. These include the protection of children, obscenity and bad language, and offences against religious sensibility, ‘reality’ television, and stereotyping. This book considers the different constraints (in the law, cultural customs, and self-regulation) affecting broadcasters in Britain and the United States and the means by which they have responded to them. The book describes, with examples, the operations of compliance regulations and standard controls. It also looks at the impact of the First Amendment on American broadcasting in this area. It looks at the arguments for the practicality of maintaining appropriate forms of restraint into the future. This book poses the question of how divided and diverse societies decide what is permissible to broadcast and how the issue might continue to evolve in the future.
John Godwin
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781904675631
- eISBN:
- 9781781380703
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781904675631.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Of all the Roman poets, Catullus is the most accessible for the modern reader. His poems range from the sublimely beautiful to the scatologically disgusting, from the world of heroic epic poetry to ...
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Of all the Roman poets, Catullus is the most accessible for the modern reader. His poems range from the sublimely beautiful to the scatologically disgusting, from the world of heroic epic poetry to the dirt of the Roman streets. This book, which assumes no prior knowledge of the poet or of Roman poetry in general, explores Catullus in all his many guises. In six concise chapters, it deals with the cultural background to his poetic production, its literary context, the role of love, Alexandrian learning and obscenity, and, in the final chapter, considers the coherence and rationale of the collection as a whole. Each chapter is illustrated by readings of a number of poems, chosen to give a representative overview of Catullus' poetry. All quotations from the text are translated, and a brief discursive section of ‘Further Reading’ is provided at the end of each chapter. A timeline giving dates of authors mentioned and a full bibliography are also supplied.Less
Of all the Roman poets, Catullus is the most accessible for the modern reader. His poems range from the sublimely beautiful to the scatologically disgusting, from the world of heroic epic poetry to the dirt of the Roman streets. This book, which assumes no prior knowledge of the poet or of Roman poetry in general, explores Catullus in all his many guises. In six concise chapters, it deals with the cultural background to his poetic production, its literary context, the role of love, Alexandrian learning and obscenity, and, in the final chapter, considers the coherence and rationale of the collection as a whole. Each chapter is illustrated by readings of a number of poems, chosen to give a representative overview of Catullus' poetry. All quotations from the text are translated, and a brief discursive section of ‘Further Reading’ is provided at the end of each chapter. A timeline giving dates of authors mentioned and a full bibliography are also supplied.
Erik de Maaker
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199812295
- eISBN:
- 9780199919390
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199812295.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Awiating abstract
Magnus Echtler
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199812295
- eISBN:
- 9780199919390
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199812295.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
As the New Year’s rituals in Makunduchi, Zanzibar, establish reciprocal relations between the citizens of the town and local spirits, they reproduce local space and identities. When the colonial ...
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As the New Year’s rituals in Makunduchi, Zanzibar, establish reciprocal relations between the citizens of the town and local spirits, they reproduce local space and identities. When the colonial state prohibited traditional transgressions in the form of stick-fighting of the young men, local women and men started to sing obscene songs. Both local religious experts and advocates of reformist Islam criticize these songs, but the singers continue to enjoy the creative freedom provided by the liminal context of the festival. The songs play an ambiguous role in the renegotiation of Zanzibari identities with the tensions between urban and rural, modern and traditional worldviews and lifestyles. The obscenities are effective transgressions because they react to increasing strictures in gender segregation and women’s roles, introduced into Swahili society since the late 19th century by reformist movements of Islam. When the women of Makunduchi sing “Ask your fathers, the clitoris is indeed your sweet” and the men answer “The women make me feel sorry, better to fuck a monkey”, they certainly challenge the gender roles propagated by the modern religious movements, as well as the traditional authority of the (male) elders, who lead the New Year’s rituals and control legitimate access to women.Less
As the New Year’s rituals in Makunduchi, Zanzibar, establish reciprocal relations between the citizens of the town and local spirits, they reproduce local space and identities. When the colonial state prohibited traditional transgressions in the form of stick-fighting of the young men, local women and men started to sing obscene songs. Both local religious experts and advocates of reformist Islam criticize these songs, but the singers continue to enjoy the creative freedom provided by the liminal context of the festival. The songs play an ambiguous role in the renegotiation of Zanzibari identities with the tensions between urban and rural, modern and traditional worldviews and lifestyles. The obscenities are effective transgressions because they react to increasing strictures in gender segregation and women’s roles, introduced into Swahili society since the late 19th century by reformist movements of Islam. When the women of Makunduchi sing “Ask your fathers, the clitoris is indeed your sweet” and the men answer “The women make me feel sorry, better to fuck a monkey”, they certainly challenge the gender roles propagated by the modern religious movements, as well as the traditional authority of the (male) elders, who lead the New Year’s rituals and control legitimate access to women.
Charles W. Collier
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195388978
- eISBN:
- 9780199855421
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388978.003.004
- Subject:
- Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law
For an analysis of the “legal context” in which speech is at issue, one might most naturally turn to the development of judicial doctrine. But the history of attempts to demarcate the legal ...
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For an analysis of the “legal context” in which speech is at issue, one might most naturally turn to the development of judicial doctrine. But the history of attempts to demarcate the legal boundaries of speech is mostly a history of failed and inconclusive efforts, as even a brief review will show. Nevertheless, a few helpful clues also emerge. This chapter examines three legal doctrines that have been used to set boundaries on what counts as speech for constitutional purposes: prior restraints, obscenity, and defamation. Briefly, these doctrines start off by claiming that prior restraints, obscenity, or defamation define what is not speech; but, as this chapter, that claim has been unraveled by subsequent judicial decisions in all three areas. So these doctrines do not serve, even negatively, as a definition of speech for legal or constitutional purposes. They do not set the “outer boundaries” of speech.Less
For an analysis of the “legal context” in which speech is at issue, one might most naturally turn to the development of judicial doctrine. But the history of attempts to demarcate the legal boundaries of speech is mostly a history of failed and inconclusive efforts, as even a brief review will show. Nevertheless, a few helpful clues also emerge. This chapter examines three legal doctrines that have been used to set boundaries on what counts as speech for constitutional purposes: prior restraints, obscenity, and defamation. Briefly, these doctrines start off by claiming that prior restraints, obscenity, or defamation define what is not speech; but, as this chapter, that claim has been unraveled by subsequent judicial decisions in all three areas. So these doctrines do not serve, even negatively, as a definition of speech for legal or constitutional purposes. They do not set the “outer boundaries” of speech.
Joel Feinberg
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195052152
- eISBN:
- 9780199785872
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195052153.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This book is the second in a four-volume work entitled The Moral Limits of Criminal Law, which examines the acts that the state may make criminal. It focuses on the issue of offense, presenting a ...
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This book is the second in a four-volume work entitled The Moral Limits of Criminal Law, which examines the acts that the state may make criminal. It focuses on the issue of offense, presenting a detailed analysis of offensive behavior and how it is more a nuisance than a menace. It identifies the different kinds of offenses and the standards for evaluating their seriousness. The issue of obscenity is analyzed within the context of pornography and the Constitution. Obscene words, their functions, and social and legal implications are also discussed.Less
This book is the second in a four-volume work entitled The Moral Limits of Criminal Law, which examines the acts that the state may make criminal. It focuses on the issue of offense, presenting a detailed analysis of offensive behavior and how it is more a nuisance than a menace. It identifies the different kinds of offenses and the standards for evaluating their seriousness. The issue of obscenity is analyzed within the context of pornography and the Constitution. Obscene words, their functions, and social and legal implications are also discussed.
Elena Gorfinkel
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781517900175
- eISBN:
- 9781452957708
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9781517900175.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation’s Cinema Scenes of Looking examines the efflorescence of American sexploitation films in the United States in the years between 1960 and 1972. Approximately ...
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Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation’s Cinema Scenes of Looking examines the efflorescence of American sexploitation films in the United States in the years between 1960 and 1972. Approximately hundreds, if not close to a thousand of such films were made in the 1960s, yet no scholarly book exists on the subject. Employing nudity but soft-core and melodramatic in tone, sexploitation films were preoccupied with the conditions of looking at exposed female flesh, conditions that they also archive and document. Defined by their low-budgets, crude mise-en-scène, and an unswerving focus on a fantastically unfettered female sexuality, sexploitation films resembled lurid pulp novels and erotic tabloids, setting the stage for the emergence of the hard-core porn film in the early 1970s with their illicit, if comparably chaste views. This book examines how the 1960s sexploitation film reconfigured the sexualized body onscreen by presenting a dialectics of indulgence and circumspection, tease and subterfuge. Gorfinkel draws on archival research and close analysis to explore sexploitation films’ regulation, reception, and strategies of sexual representation. The book reveals how sixties sexploitation films possessed a “circumstantial reflexivity,” thematizing their own conditions of reception, impacted by anxieties surrounding American film spectatorship and erotic consumption in this period.Less
Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation’s Cinema Scenes of Looking examines the efflorescence of American sexploitation films in the United States in the years between 1960 and 1972. Approximately hundreds, if not close to a thousand of such films were made in the 1960s, yet no scholarly book exists on the subject. Employing nudity but soft-core and melodramatic in tone, sexploitation films were preoccupied with the conditions of looking at exposed female flesh, conditions that they also archive and document. Defined by their low-budgets, crude mise-en-scène, and an unswerving focus on a fantastically unfettered female sexuality, sexploitation films resembled lurid pulp novels and erotic tabloids, setting the stage for the emergence of the hard-core porn film in the early 1970s with their illicit, if comparably chaste views. This book examines how the 1960s sexploitation film reconfigured the sexualized body onscreen by presenting a dialectics of indulgence and circumspection, tease and subterfuge. Gorfinkel draws on archival research and close analysis to explore sexploitation films’ regulation, reception, and strategies of sexual representation. The book reveals how sixties sexploitation films possessed a “circumstantial reflexivity,” thematizing their own conditions of reception, impacted by anxieties surrounding American film spectatorship and erotic consumption in this period.
Josh Lambert
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479876433
- eISBN:
- 9781479851584
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479876433.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Jews have played an integral role in the history of obscenity in America. For most of the 20th century, Jewish entrepreneurs and editors led the charge against obscenity laws. Jewish lawyers battled ...
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Jews have played an integral role in the history of obscenity in America. For most of the 20th century, Jewish entrepreneurs and editors led the charge against obscenity laws. Jewish lawyers battled literary censorship even when their non-Jewish counterparts refused to do so, and they won court decisions in favor of texts including Ulysses, A Howl, Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Tropic of Cancer. Jewish literary critics have provided some of the most influential courtroom testimony on behalf of freedom of expression. The anti-Semitic stereotype of the lascivious Jew has made many historians hesitant to draw a direct link between Jewishness and obscenity. This book addresses the Jewishness of participants in obscenity controversies in the U.S. directly, exploring the transformative roles played by a host of neglected figures in the development of modern and postmodern American culture. The diversity of American Jewry means that there is no single explanation for Jews'interventions in this field. Rejecting generalizations, the book offers case studies that pair cultural histories with close readings of both contested texts and trial transcripts to reveal the ways in which specific engagements with obscenity mattered to particular American Jews at discrete historical moments.Less
Jews have played an integral role in the history of obscenity in America. For most of the 20th century, Jewish entrepreneurs and editors led the charge against obscenity laws. Jewish lawyers battled literary censorship even when their non-Jewish counterparts refused to do so, and they won court decisions in favor of texts including Ulysses, A Howl, Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Tropic of Cancer. Jewish literary critics have provided some of the most influential courtroom testimony on behalf of freedom of expression. The anti-Semitic stereotype of the lascivious Jew has made many historians hesitant to draw a direct link between Jewishness and obscenity. This book addresses the Jewishness of participants in obscenity controversies in the U.S. directly, exploring the transformative roles played by a host of neglected figures in the development of modern and postmodern American culture. The diversity of American Jewry means that there is no single explanation for Jews'interventions in this field. Rejecting generalizations, the book offers case studies that pair cultural histories with close readings of both contested texts and trial transcripts to reveal the ways in which specific engagements with obscenity mattered to particular American Jews at discrete historical moments.
Scarlett Baron
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693788
- eISBN:
- 9780191732157
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693788.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, European Literature
Chapter 4 explores the significance of a jotting made by Joyce in the notebook he kept in preparation for the composition of Exiles (1918), his only play. It considers the implications of Joyce’s ...
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Chapter 4 explores the significance of a jotting made by Joyce in the notebook he kept in preparation for the composition of Exiles (1918), his only play. It considers the implications of Joyce’s view of Madame Bovary as a watershed literary event – a tale of adultery in which ‘the centre of sympathy appears to have been shifted from the lover or fancyman to the husband or cuckold’, and the accuracy of his sense that ‘[t]his change is utilized in Exiles’. The chapter investigates the relationship Joyce sought to establish between Richard Rowan and the theatre-going public, contrasting his unsteady control of audience sympathy in the play with his masterful orchestration of such responses in Ulysses. Noting the absence in Exiles, and presence in Ulysses, of legally contracted marriage as a frame for the study of adultery, the chapter analyzes Joyce’s interrogation of that pivotal nineteenth- and early twentieth-century bourgeois institution.Less
Chapter 4 explores the significance of a jotting made by Joyce in the notebook he kept in preparation for the composition of Exiles (1918), his only play. It considers the implications of Joyce’s view of Madame Bovary as a watershed literary event – a tale of adultery in which ‘the centre of sympathy appears to have been shifted from the lover or fancyman to the husband or cuckold’, and the accuracy of his sense that ‘[t]his change is utilized in Exiles’. The chapter investigates the relationship Joyce sought to establish between Richard Rowan and the theatre-going public, contrasting his unsteady control of audience sympathy in the play with his masterful orchestration of such responses in Ulysses. Noting the absence in Exiles, and presence in Ulysses, of legally contracted marriage as a frame for the study of adultery, the chapter analyzes Joyce’s interrogation of that pivotal nineteenth- and early twentieth-century bourgeois institution.
Joel Feinberg
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195052152
- eISBN:
- 9780199785872
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195052153.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
A wholesale ban on uttering or writing obscene words cannot be justified even by the principle of legal moralism. Moreover, the offense principle cannot justify the criminal prohibition of the ...
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A wholesale ban on uttering or writing obscene words cannot be justified even by the principle of legal moralism. Moreover, the offense principle cannot justify the criminal prohibition of the utterance of obscenities in public places even when these are intentionally used to cause offense. The use of obscene words can only be made criminal when it is an unjustified, deliberately imposed nuisance. This form of nuisance is a kind of harassment, and the fact that it employs obscene words is by no means essential to its moral gravamen. Obscenity in the media is discussed.Less
A wholesale ban on uttering or writing obscene words cannot be justified even by the principle of legal moralism. Moreover, the offense principle cannot justify the criminal prohibition of the utterance of obscenities in public places even when these are intentionally used to cause offense. The use of obscene words can only be made criminal when it is an unjustified, deliberately imposed nuisance. This form of nuisance is a kind of harassment, and the fact that it employs obscene words is by no means essential to its moral gravamen. Obscenity in the media is discussed.
Kevin W. Saunders
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814741443
- eISBN:
- 9780814708750
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814741443.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Legal History
Throughout history obscenity has not really been about sex but about degradation. Sexual depictions have been suppressed when they were seen as lowering the status of humans, furthering our distance ...
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Throughout history obscenity has not really been about sex but about degradation. Sexual depictions have been suppressed when they were seen as lowering the status of humans, furthering our distance from the gods or God and moving us toward the animals. In the current era, when we recognize ourselves and both humans and animals, sexual depiction has lost some of its sting. Its degrading role has been replaced by hate speech that distances groups, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, not only from God but from humanity to a subhuman level. This book traces the legal trajectory of degradation as it moved from sexual depiction to hateful speech. Looking closely at hate speech in several arenas, including racist, homophobic, and sexist speech in the workplace, classroom, and other real-life scenarios, the book posits that if hate speech is today's conceptual equivalent of obscenity, then the body of law that dictated obscenity might shed some much-needed light on what may or may not qualify as punishable hate speech.Less
Throughout history obscenity has not really been about sex but about degradation. Sexual depictions have been suppressed when they were seen as lowering the status of humans, furthering our distance from the gods or God and moving us toward the animals. In the current era, when we recognize ourselves and both humans and animals, sexual depiction has lost some of its sting. Its degrading role has been replaced by hate speech that distances groups, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, not only from God but from humanity to a subhuman level. This book traces the legal trajectory of degradation as it moved from sexual depiction to hateful speech. Looking closely at hate speech in several arenas, including racist, homophobic, and sexist speech in the workplace, classroom, and other real-life scenarios, the book posits that if hate speech is today's conceptual equivalent of obscenity, then the body of law that dictated obscenity might shed some much-needed light on what may or may not qualify as punishable hate speech.
Joel Feinberg
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195052152
- eISBN:
- 9780199785872
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195052153.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Obscenity is an extreme form of offensiveness producing repugnance, shock, or disgust, although the offending materials can, at the same time, be alluring to some degree. The main feature that ...
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Obscenity is an extreme form of offensiveness producing repugnance, shock, or disgust, although the offending materials can, at the same time, be alluring to some degree. The main feature that distinguishes obscene things from other repellant or offensive things is their blatancy: their massive obtrusiveness, their extreme and unvarnished bluntness, their brazenly naked exhibition. The three classes of objects that can be termed as “obscene” are: obscene natural objects, obscene persons, and obscene created things. There are three ways in which these objects can be offensive to the point of obscenity: by direct offense to the senses, by offense to lower order sensibilities, by offense to higher sensibilities.Less
Obscenity is an extreme form of offensiveness producing repugnance, shock, or disgust, although the offending materials can, at the same time, be alluring to some degree. The main feature that distinguishes obscene things from other repellant or offensive things is their blatancy: their massive obtrusiveness, their extreme and unvarnished bluntness, their brazenly naked exhibition. The three classes of objects that can be termed as “obscene” are: obscene natural objects, obscene persons, and obscene created things. There are three ways in which these objects can be offensive to the point of obscenity: by direct offense to the senses, by offense to lower order sensibilities, by offense to higher sensibilities.
Joel Feinberg
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195052152
- eISBN:
- 9780199785872
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195052153.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
The term “pornographic” is a purely descriptive word referring to sexually explicit writing and pictures designed to induce sexual excitement in the reader or observer. To use the terms “obscene” and ...
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The term “pornographic” is a purely descriptive word referring to sexually explicit writing and pictures designed to induce sexual excitement in the reader or observer. To use the terms “obscene” and “pornographic” interchangeably, as if they referred to the same thing, is to beg the question of whether any or all pornographic materials are obscene. Whether any given acknowledged form of pornography is really obscene is an open question to be settled by argument and not by definitional fiat. The following subjects are discussed: the contrast between pornographic writing and literature and drama; artful pornography; pornographic pictorial art, poetry, and program music; how sex can be obscene; the feminist case against pornography; and violent pornography.Less
The term “pornographic” is a purely descriptive word referring to sexually explicit writing and pictures designed to induce sexual excitement in the reader or observer. To use the terms “obscene” and “pornographic” interchangeably, as if they referred to the same thing, is to beg the question of whether any or all pornographic materials are obscene. Whether any given acknowledged form of pornography is really obscene is an open question to be settled by argument and not by definitional fiat. The following subjects are discussed: the contrast between pornographic writing and literature and drama; artful pornography; pornographic pictorial art, poetry, and program music; how sex can be obscene; the feminist case against pornography; and violent pornography.
