Censorship and Silencing
For this project, the Academy co-sponsored a series of symposia and conferences to examine censorship from a variety of perspectives. In the resulting volume of essays, an interdisciplinary group of scholars analyzed efforts to regulate speech and examined the subsequent cultural implications.
Censorship in America was once a predictable topic, with liberals and conservatives taking stances on either side of issues such as obscenity and national security. Since World War II, however, political dichotomy no longer corresponds to debate about the regulation of speech, and expression is censored not only by the state but by discursive practices, by the market, and by a range of institutions. During 1994 and 1995, the Academy co-sponsored a series of symposia and conferences to examine censorship from a variety of perspectives. In the resulting volume of essays, an interdisciplinary group of scholars analyzed efforts to regulate speech and examined the subsequent cultural implications. Many of the issues addressed are still relevant in the early twenty-first century, where national security, the banning of “hate speech,” and control of obscenity and pornography in the media are only some of the censorship concerns facing the country.