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Poison, Filth, Trash: Modernism, Censorship and Resistance

Module description

Modernist authors and filmmakers pushed the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable in terms of racial, sexual, gender, age, national and class politics as well as aesthetics. As a result, they had to confront the threat and reality of censorship and repression. This module invites you to explore different forms of censorship and repression, ranging from psychological repression, self-censorship, and editorial interventions to postal seizures and government-imposed bans. You will learn about the reasons why certain texts were considered dangerous, obscene or immoral, engaging closely with ideologies of race, sexuality, gender, age, nation and class that underpin censorship and repression. You will examine transnational networks of circulation and explore the different strategies authors and filmmakers developed to resist censorship or to reveal the repressed contents of the human mind. You will consider the complex and often contradictory impact of censorship and debate whether there are contexts in which forms of repression are inevitable or even necessary.  You will also explore the histories behind concepts like freedom of speech and strategies like age restrictions and content warnings that are still relevant today.

This module is suitable for all students. You will have the chance to read literary and filmic texts in tandem with other relevant historical sources and theoretical debates.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Through discussions, presentations and lectures, you will engage critically and creatively with modernist literature and film in order to:

• discover different forms of censorship and repression and learn how these have shaped the production and reception of modernist literature and film
• investigate why certain texts were censored, asking what censorship reveals about historically and culturally specific concerns about race, sexuality, gender, nation and class
• explore how modernist texts were affected by censorship, reading literature and film in tandem with legal, scientific and other historical sources
• examine how modernist authors and filmmakers engage with themes related to censorship and repression, including psychological repression, freedom of speech, power and corruption, in their work
• debate whether certain forms of censorship or repression can be productive or even necessary under certain circumstances

Teaching is by two-hour weekly seminars (or similar), which will give you a chance to discuss the literary and filmic texts in-depth and explore relevant historical, critical and theoretical contexts. There will be additional one-hour lectures each week to offer further contextual information and film screenings. The assignments give you the option to go beyond the set reading and viewing and explore additional authors, filmmakers, texts and themes based on your own interests.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an informed and critical understanding of the ways in which modernist culture was shaped by different forms of censorship and repression
• 2. Relate modernist literature and film to other relevant historical sources (e.g. legal or scientific) and to the socio-political contexts out of which they arose
• 3. Analyse how modernist writers and filmmakers responded to the threat of censorship in their works and how they engaged with psychological forms of repression and self-censorship
• 4. Engage critically with ideologies of race, sexuality, gender, nation and class that underpin censorship and repression

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Analyse literature and film and relate their concerns and modes of representation to different social, political, economic and historical contexts
• 6. Demonstrate advanced skills in the close formal, thematic, generic, comparative and historical analysis of different kinds of fiction and film
• 7. Research and evaluate relevant critical, historical and theoretical materials for the study of film and literature

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 8. Through module participation, demonstrate advanced verbal communication skills individually and as part of a group
• 9. Through essay-writing, demonstrate appropriate research and bibliographical skills, a capacity to construct a coherent and substantial argument, an ability to write clear and convincing prose and develop planning, organisational and problem-solving skills
• 10. Through research for e.g. seminars and assignments, demonstrate advanced proficiency in identifying appropriate primary and secondary materials, information analysis and work on your own initiative

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that this module will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Sexology, Medical Authority and Queer and Trans Lives
• Legal Frameworks of Censorship, Obscenity and ‘Corruption’
• Pornography and Sexual Freedom
• The Harlem Renaissance, Black Liberation and the Literary Canon
• Female Sexuality and Visual Languages of Resistance
• White Patronage and Censorship
• The Indian Progressive Writers’ Association and Freedom of Speech
• The Bloomsbury Group, Queer Sexualities and Self-Censorship
• Civil Rights and Surveillance
• Injurious and Harmful Speech
  
  

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Primary reading:

• James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (1956)
• Djuna Barnes, Ladies Almanack (1928)
• Ismat Chughtai, “The Quilt” (1941)
• E.M. Forster, Maurice (1913-14/1971)
• Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness (1928)
• Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road (1941)
• Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928)
• Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)

Secondary reading:

• Judith Butler, Excitable Speech (1997)
• Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women and Queer Radicals (2019)
• Allison Pease, Modernism, Mass Culture and the Aesthetics of Obscenity (2000)
• Rachel Potter, Obscene Modernism: Literary Censorship and Experiment (2013)
• Lisa Sigel, Governing Pleasures: Pornography and Social Change in England, 1815-1914 (2002)
• Whitney Strub, Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right (2010)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11213

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

Viewing:

• Borderline, dir. Kenneth Macpherson (1930)
• Different from the Others, dir. Richard Oswald (1919)
• Girls in Uniform, dir. Leontine Sagan (1931)
• Fire, dir. Deepa Mehta (1996)
• The Children’s Hour, dir. William Wyler (1961)
• Passing, dir. Rebecca Hall (2021)

Key words search

modernism; censorship; sexuality; gender; race; nation; class; queer; feminist