I'm finding it interesting to read these comments. My comment comes from personal experience. I have read everything that Sherman Alexie wrote and adored him as a writer and as a person. I heard him speak twice and have pictures of us taken at the book signing, arms around each other. Then came the allegations and his reaction to it. I was heartbroken and devastated, as if a close friend had betrayed me. I couldn't listen to his memoir because it was recorded in his voice. I still adore his poetry, books, and movies, but not in the same way. I admire his superior intellect and talent, but I can't help feeling terrible about him using his wealth of talent to lure young women into bed with him. I felt connected to his writing personally and that might be what makes it so hard for me. I'm in favor of the idea of asking the students to participate in how the curriculum gets chosen. If Mr. Alexie can find a way to truly apologize for his faults and learn from this experience I might feel up to reading his memoir. I will keep reading his poetry, however, because it astounds me with his literary prowess.
18
There is a reason undergraduates are deserting the humanities in droves. It wasn't so long ago that English professors were insisting that the text was entirely subjective, independent from the author, and that the author had no more right to assertions of meaning within it that anyone else.
Now they have moved on to ideological purity screening, somehow oblivious to the dangers.
They must not think books themselves mean anything.
53
We only have to look at school syllabi and literary anthologies of the past to see that academics have always left off writers whom they found to be immoral or not good enough, etc., based on what was considered good taste for that time. For example, extremely racist and anti-ethnic "local color" fiction was all the rage at the start of the 20th C. Today you only see that stuff in specialized graduate courses.
This is not about the prejudice or PC attitude of this or that educator in 2019. It is not about censorship, or about depriving students of the "classics." It is very much about the standards of our era. In 50 years, the American Lit canon will probably look pretty different from what it is now, and people in that historical moment will have solid-sounding justifications then too.
19
When this all plays out, the only book left on the shelf will be the collected works of Mike Pence.
30
This is less an issue of whether an author is or was a sexual predator, but rather, one of revamping the canon to include books written by diverse voices. Men have controlled the cultural narrative for so long, their viewpoint has become the norm, internalized by men and women alike. After rereading the male authors I once considered great, like Updike, I see that for many, the worlds they created are limited and distorted by their inability to transcend their male gaze. This creates the need to broaden the curricula and take this factor into account when teaching literature.
21
To strip the worlds art reserves of the works of those who commited or were accused, or suspected of abuse...would leave us with little to gaze upon, to listen to, to stir our imaginations.
We have works going back to our beginnings that were made by to glorify war, made by warriors, made for warriors, and made from the ashes of the destruction humans brough down upon other humans. The myth of the building of the pyramids, is all based on the abuse of an enslaved peoples. Precious materials plundered from the new world, built works of art in Europe. Do we rip them down and off the walls?
We know that a fair portion of those who abuse, were themselves abused...and we know that many who were abused...turn that hurt into art...
How can we just outright dismiss the work?
We should not. Its just not the correct reaction to this issue.
Art rises from our pain and strife, and/or longing to be free of it...we cant just erase the work when we discover the makers are...human. Who abuse and may very well have been abused, witnessed abuse, etc.
The only mistake we truly make in this regards, is the one made by the teacher on the Navajo Rez, who decided to deny her students the truth about their "hero". Thats the mistake we make...hiding the truth of the fact that artists are not super human. Artists are as frail and subject to doing horrible things as the rest of us.
Show the works, read the works, listen to them...but be informed about the makers. Dont hide the truth.
45
What if some historian uncovered evidence that Shakespeare sexually harassed women? What would we do then? It's the art, not the creator.
29
Why topple only the works of imperfect beings that involve arts and entertainment? Why don't those who feel qualified to remove these works from civilization also vow to abstain and prevent others from ever accessing the contributions of life-saving medical procedures, psychology, agriculture, environmental preservation, electronics, transportation, and engineering and justify doing so with equal urgency whenever these become judged as tainted by discovering the imperfections of the contributors?
38
Fascinating, but also obvious. Haven't authors always lived controversial lives? And artists? Leaders? We want to search for heroes to tell us what to think instead of thinking for ourselves.
Long before METOO, we've had to divorce ourselves from hero worshipping and instead focus on the art itself-for beauty, inspiration, and criticism. So many of the most transformative works I've read were written by men and women who were lost, angry, self destructive, and sometimes even cruel to others. I can hold them accountable for their narrow thinking or misdeeds while also being open--and open to criticizing--their arts' message.
This is not double-think or hypocrisy but the basic act of intellectual inquiry. It is a process that doesn't search for heroes, but instead creates active readers, thinkers. Readers are in charge. What disappoints me is how unnatural this process of complex thinking is for students and professors today. It should be lesson number one in all schools. We don't read to find the right ideas, necessarily. We read to find lots of ideas, to be open to even the strangest of ideas, and then to form our own.
42
We’ll all be happier when we get to parity but a more positive approach seems best. For instance, links in this article led me to brilliant poems by Mary Karr. Why not start there rather than arrive through the back door? And speaking of, wasn’t DFW forgotten before he committed suicide? Was he on this syllabus before that act of self-harm seemed to enshrine a sort of new “genius” status? So maybe what needs interrogation here is our process in making selections. And that shouldn’t need to exclude a broader presumption of innocence.
7
"Men Toppled by #MeToo" !!
You make it sound like these men are the victims! And there are already people who see it that way.
Also, this assumes that we can treat all such men equally, as if one highly questionable allegation against Woody Allen should carry the same weight as multiple highly credible allegations against Harvey Weinstein ...
And why would this discussion only be applied to men toppled by #metoo. What about men or women who have committed other serious crimes? Or were guilty of other anti-social behaviors? Or of holding political views that are now unacceptable?
All of this hurts #metoo. It suggests that the men who have mistreated women are somehow a special category, for whom the principle of innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply, who are exposed to special punishments ...
Men who are sexual preditors are "sexual preditors", men who are rapists are rapists. They are not just "men toppled by #metoo" ...
10
One day all of these children that teachers are so frightened of offending will grow up to realize they too are a flawed generation. By then it will be too late to reverse the damage. The books will have been burned and the art destroyed and everything good that goes along with it.
Going forward I think my authors and artists will be anonymous.
36
I think the Me Too lens is helpful as is the lens of all those who were born on the socio-racial-religious-ethnic-economic losing side in shaping the curriculum or the "canon" since so many voices and great works can get left out. Professors can get lazy teaching the same old same old. However, not all or perhaps many great artists are great people; yet, many should be read, debated, resisted, and used as springboards to creative works that make space, power, worlds of the future, not all dystopian. Choice, yes, erasing the past, no. Because of the internet, there is so much more choice. However asking who shapes the choice is both a critical question and one that neither student nor professor does alone.
10
Does Wagner belong in the opera house? Should our kids not read Mark Twain? This is getting beyond ridiculous. Let's build a giant safe space for these people who can't deal, then the rest of us can enjoy the creations of brilliant people, and figure the bad stuff out for ourselves.
88
Hire someone to research every author who we have read just for their personal backgrounds. Burn their books. Wipe their names off of their films. This is boring and gone far enough. Oh rewrite their books. Are we really talking about 2019. Or a dystopian novel ?
45
should we listen to Paul Robeson singing even though he was a communist ?! and what about the art of Charlie chaplain, who was known for the same political persuasions ?! or listen to Franz Schubert's music ( he was gay, according to some research). there are many more such examples.
ultimately, it needs to be about the art,NOT the person who created it.
21
The fact that some people are "perverted" while simultaneously being brilliant writers/actors/whatever is beside the point. Yes, their works should still be taught, and yes, their "lifestyles" should be included in the discussion - for older students. We can be amazed and enthralled by a brilliant work while simultaneously being aghast at the character of the author.
20
That seems to be a new m,ovement to ban books that could make one or the other among us uncomfortable. Literature reflects the values of its day, and authors, even if they have done things that are reprehensible in the eyes of today's readers, show which values were prevalent in their days.
There is no need for thought police who read and bowdlerize literature to keep the reader from being uncomfortable. The duty of teachers is to further critical reading: "How was it then? How have things changed? What changes need be effected today?"
The person who takes out a book has the choice of whether to read it or not. But: that does not mean that anyone has the right to determine what someone else is allowed to read.
21
The point is to teach what the historical value is. It is not to promote those values. It is to make students use critical thinking. Of course, they outlawed that in Texas, right?
We still teach Twain, and we should continue to do so.
12
Any of these teachers read Fahrenheit 451?
Or has Ray Bradbury been cancelled too?
45
What about the Greeks? Are we done with the classics too?
And what about illicit drugs?
To follow this woke line of reasoning: do these kids care where their cocaine comes from? What about their molly? Surely they haven’t canceled the cartels who supply them, even though the cartels commit the most heinous crimes against women, men, and children.
Selective wokeness is what this is.
35
Moral critique of art is itself a great tradition. I believe Plato did this to Homer, and then obviously there is Crime and Punishment. The moral critique can itself be artful. So I think the problem here is not moral critique per se but rather that our present moral critique is somehow empty. To me, one of the problems is its lack of depth. Some women criticizing chauvinism for example seem to take the position that they themselves do not have to grapple with the temptations of power. This is not just wrong, it is also boring.
34
@JK one of the best comments here. Yes, too often these critiques about sexism and racism revolve around the dishonest premise that only one side of the equation ever misbehaves. And the tedious petty moralizing used to be the domain of priggish old religious right folks. It is boring. I've dated plenty of jerks and plenty of men I felt bitter about the way they treated me. I couldn't imagine making it an issue in the court of public opinion or trying to get strangers to take my side in what I know is the kind of romantic dramas that are just par for the course. If the issues between men and women were simply a case of male sexism then gays would not have the same issue as straight people do. But if you have any gay friends, as I do, you would know they complain about all the same things straight women complain about men.
19
How about we just facts as facts, novels as novels, films as films, proposed statutes and statutes, and remember that the "origin" of an idea or fact is one thing, and the truth of it is another.
We have spent too many decades of the worst kind of reductionism, minimizing the importance of truth. Don't psychoanalyze an idea, test it! Don't reduce an idea to its social origins, test it!
Don't ask if a novel is rooted in a man buggering his sister. Judge the novel as a novel.
Trump should have cultivated in us all a desperate desire for truth. "Origins" are interesting as history, but let truth stand on its own, and not face reductionist minimization.
9
What a willfully inflammatory topic proffered for some clicks. Accusations are just that until proved. These works aren’t going anywhere.
14
I find it easy to relinquish the art of abusers. Knowing changes how I feel about the artist. I can't separate my feelings from those whom they have harmed. There is a big, wide world filled with artists who aren't abusers; I find it simple to prefer them.
5
@Kelly Clark Alexie and Diaz weren't accused of abuse. Woody Allen was accused but there's zero evidence that it happened.
14
@Kelly Clark Yes, but how do you know that they are not abusers? There is no vetting mechanism to guide you. Should one of your preferred artists be accused of abuse, do you de-prefer them and find someone else to prefer? And what if...
8
I feel that artistic people; painters, authors, actors, writers, etc., all tend to harbor more anti-social traits. This trait is where they draw their creative energy from, to some degree. I don't think that purging the work of people we don't like socially is the right answer, we just need to be sure that everyone knows about the repugnant and sometimes unlawful behavior, that those creators are involved in.
4
What's interesting to me is that the authors of these works haven't done any actual harm to the readers, right??? And yet, the readers are somehow at risk - of what?? Are they somehow guilty by association if they - heaven forbid - enjoy the work of a "bad guy?" If they are, isn't that a sort of moral sloppiness that is the mark of moral immaturity.
Here's a thought - remove all reference to the author's name, and maybe even remove the tile of the work, and then have the students read the works. Do you think they will experience harm from the work, or ONLY if they know who wrote it? Presumably, if the readers were to experience harm, it would be from the content, not the name on the cover, right?
18
Why stop at poor treatment of women? Isaac Newton was a boor to everyone and arranged gruesome public executions of petty criminals. Handel was a plagiarist. Susan B. Anthony and other women’s suffragists spewed racist tropes and opposed voting rights for black men. Einstein made racist remarks about Asians. So now we can no longer teach E = mc^2?
Can a professor refuse to teach a student who has been accused of sexual misbehavior? Can they fail a student whose parents make racist remarks?
We can condemn the artist while praising the art. They are not one and the same.
53
Honestly, the whole question is rather juvenile. Not only would following such a principle likely require scrubbing the majority of great artists (and philosophers and scientists etc) from the curriculum, but it rests upon the very dubious conflation of personal biography and art.
19
@Daniel Kaufman
Kant is described as being polite, punctual, and fastidious. John Milton was called 'the lady of Cambridge," because he was so concerned with personal appearance and social grace. Wallace Stevens was known as a polite, upstanding citizen. My impression is that Shelley, John Locke, and Sartre were all considered fine people.
I don't endorse censorship, but people really do seem to equate literature with wild, often alcoholic living. I love Baudelaire as much as the next guy, but plenty of my favorite writers and philosophers were mild-mannered people. To my mind, it's very much a beatnik (post-World War 2) notion that writing has to push boundaries and that writers should be wild men or women (basically, rebels with or without causes). Emily Dickinson certainly was not a wild woman. Nor was George Herbert. You can read all of Dickinson's poetry without, I'd bet, a single reference to alcohol. I'm lightyears from being a prude (I club until 4AM), but writing doesn't HAVE to be prose about drinking and sex. Hank Moody isn't the only image of the writer. If you only read and assign the Hank Moodys of literature, you'll encounter this conflict more than if you assign the poetry of GM Hopkins and George Herbert.
5
Artists are just artists. They have a talent and a powerful need to create. They can be intelligent, although the degree of intelligence is not necessarily directly proportional to their artistic ability. Their vision may or may not be a vision imbued with or focused on a moral perspective. They aren’t necessarily heroes in any sense of the term.
One can, and should, interact with art without feeling obligated to agree with either the artistic vision or the moral universe implied by the totality of the work. Art, in all its forms, has always been populated with blackguards, sometimes legendary ones. You don’t have to like or approve of an artist to appreciated his or her art. An artist and the art that artist produces are separate. To know something of the private nature of an artist can, but doesn’t always, improve one’s understanding or appreciation of the art. Artists are quite often social outcasts and revered only after their deaths.
If you find an artist’s personal life, or moral views, or political views repugnant, or disreputable, or dangerous, you are entitled to express your opinion and should feel free to avoid that artist’s work. Be clear, however, that this is a form of censorship, albeit a personal not a public form. My view is that you can express yourself while allowing others to form their own opinions. Publicly advocating that an artist be disappeared, is something else, and like it or not, that something else is censorship, and it is ugly.
13
Yes, of course they do. A work of art is still noteworthy regardless of what its creator has been accused of. There are very few artists of the past who are not problematic in some way.
6
What makes me sad is that Al Franken ,Charlie Rose ,Placido Domingo and so many other men have been condemned and eliminated just on accusations ,not a trial.
25
Personally, I think that though the actions of the author might be horrible the work itself is not. A powerful piece of literature or art should be judged on its own merit. You would not judge a child so too should you not judge a book by it's author.
If you are concerned about not supporting the author there are many fine second hand bookstores around.
(Also when I was in school the author was just a name on a book. There were books I deeply connected with, it didn't mean that I was deeply connected to or looked up to the author. And I don't think I'm alone in that.)
13
Perhaps what's really needed is a reassessment of the idea that creators of art should be held up necessarily as heroes. Some are heroes, some are scoundrels, and most are somewhere in between, just like everybody else.
We can appreciate, say, Plato's dialogues, while also acknowledging that Socrates was an unrepentant pederast. We can enjoy a scene from Annie Hall while also recognizing that Woody Allen's relationship with his step-daughter was creepy at best. We can watch Thriller while also knowing that Michael Jackson abused children. We can read Thomas Jefferson's writings while knowing that he enslaved his own children.
The only reason not to teach these kinds of works is to reduce the profits made from them, and that only makes sense if the creator is still alive or in a situation where money is really a limitation. For most famous artists, money really isn't a limitation at all, even if they're disgraced.
As for efforts to make the canon not a parade of white guys: Sure, great, go ahead, there's a lot of great stuff out there by non-white and/or non-male artists and authors, but that's a different goal than what's being discussed here.
16
The art should stand on its own. We do not need to know the personal life of the artist.
If a man or woman is a bad spouse, does it also mean they are a bad parent who should be denied access to the children?
7
I think it's hard to untangle the artist from the art when money is involved. It's hard to argue that there isn't something still to be learned from many of these texts/movies, but it is hard to accept that you will continue to put money in the pockets of those who don't deserve it should you continue to include it in a course. It's not about not consuming the art, it's about not supporting the artist.
5
As a retired professor of literature, I am horrified by the "sexual harassment based cleansing" going on in American classrooms. The fact that an author's works can be removed from syllabi and curricula because of "stories" or rumors about predatory behavior reminds me more of the McCarthy era than the MeToo era. I am a complete supporter of having every credible claim of harassment, assault, rape, or the like reported to and investigated by the proper authorities (something universities, clergy, and other institutions seem unwilling to do). I also believe in the right of the accused to face his/her accuser and to have evidence examined. The whole history of Western art is full of examples of practitioners who were exploiters, moral monsters, and more. But we cannot judge the aesthetic value of their works on these criteria. Let's not let our justified anger at sexual violence, assault and harassment become inextricably intertwined with our artistic judgment.
27
One of the most interesting and effective documentaries I've ever seen is Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl.
Do I agree with her politics? Do I admire her as a person? Absolutely not.
But there's a lot to be learned from her work, she was a phenomenal filmmaker and used the medium in astonishing, and evil, ways.
Reading a book, watching a film, listening to a piece of music does not mean you love the artist or that the artist is a really good person who lived a model life.
It means you're looking at the art and evaluating it for what it is, good, bad or indifferent. You're asking questions, and thinking and learning.
If the only art that has value is politically correct or is made by flawless individuals, that art will be pretty mediocre.
12
What is to distinguish this from the past history of book burning, the Catholic church's list of proscribed texts, the Inquisition, banned in Boston, and many other examples we could name?
9
It is appropriate to talk about a great work along with the shortcomings of its creator. I think students can look at both through a critical lens and make thoughtful conclusions.
Censorship is not the answer. Lively discussion, civil debate, and thoughtful questioning are the answers.
17
It think the logic behind "canceling" the works of artists who transgressed is a form of social conservatism wrapped in a supposedly progressive ideology of our cultural moment (and I definitely don't consider myself socially or politically conservative). It seeks to artificially sanitize what is the real canvas of our shared human experiences. And it leads down the dark grey road to censorship.
We should not deny our children, our students, each other, the capacity to critically and intelligently consume art. If anything, contemplating art vs. artist is a testament to the complexity of our nature, and how we are all capable of both beautiful and horrid acts.
16
First, I have had multiple female bosses, and about half of them have either come onto me or given me preferential treatment, because I am an attractive man. One of these women is well-known in the fashion world. When I did not flatter her, things got awkward and she did sabotage my reputation in a dishonest way. It is about power, not about gender.
Second, many women try to use sexuality to gain some advantage with men, in all areas of life. I think there should be some articles about this before people continue talking about men as abusers and women as helpless victims.
The current discussion, as represented in this article, just does not reflect reality. It is clever, when what we really need is broader honesty.
10
Martina Myers is out of mind. Does the book encourage sexual harassment? Probably not. So how does the behavior of its author affect its positive influence on children.
I reminds me of the outrage that parents expressed after Sasha Grey, a porn star, was allowed to read children's books to children.
3
It would be helpful to question why these works were in the canon in the first place, with recollection of what unequal circumstances gave us a mostly white, mostly male canon--what Virginia Woolf wrote about the sad fate of Shakespeare's equally talented (imaginary) sister. Focusing on Alexie and Diaz obscures this.
Too Shakespeare may have abandoned his family (though we don't know what the terms were and how anyone felt about that), but he wrote with deep empathic insight into all kinds of human hearts. Norman Mailer wrote like someone who stabbed his wife, which is a bigger problem with his writing even than that he stabbed his wife.
11
@HopeJones
"Norman Mailer wrote like someone who stabbed his wife, which is a bigger problem with his writing even than that he stabbed his wife."
This is the best criticism of Mailer that I have seen.
8
There are other authors who don’t abuse their position, just as there are professional athletes who are not criminals.
Before we set up up role models for our children can we expect that
3
I live in the inverted/ perverted world of Northampton, Ma where we have Smith one of the "Five Colleges". To translate the mottoes of these schools one needs only a few words:
Men bad; Women good.
Book Burning by any other words; it's still book burning ( and we know how that winds up, don't we?)
Leave their work alone. You cannot erase history. Or you will become the Ministry of Truth.
14
Had this convo with my brother the other day:
“What if cancel culture was a thing back in King David’s day?”
“Yeah, you would have scratched out Psalm 23 and most of the Psalms out”
2
There is no substitute for the presumption of innocence and the concept of innocent until proven guilty. No matter how bad the crime, the rights of the accused must be protected. Period.
8
It's no mystery why the world "Cancel" is used repeatedly here, as we are talking about Cultural Revolution style cancel culture.
We already know what happens if zealots think that by excluding or destroying works of literature or art which make them uncomfortable they've transcended difficult issues, all the while conflating mere prejudice with vicious racism, and mere sexual inappropriateness with vicious sexual assault.
Savanah Lyon and 20,000 signatures to "cancel The Films of Woody Allen" course based on allegations is part of a movement which includes the attempt to destroy WPA murals in San Francisco.
The murals, a series of 13 frescoes titled "The Life of Washington," were painted by Victor Arnautoff, a Russian émigré and a Communist, in the hallways of George Washington High School in the 1930s as the school was built. Ironically, the frescoes were highly critical of the first president and the country’s treatment of African-Americans and Native Americans. However, it didn't stop nearly a million dollars being spent to destroy them.
The actor Danny Glover, a Washington High graduate, joined a massive coalition to save the murals, stating that destroying or blocking them from view was "akin to book burning." Thanks to local historians and preservationists the murals have not yet been destroyed, but nearly a million dollars has been spent to bury them behind a wall.
It means, as most Americans understand, what is occurring is the equivalent of book burning.
34
I think the accusation of aggressive misogyny against Junot Diaz made by Carmen Maria Machado is one of the most clear cut examples of an area where cancel culture has overstepped its usefulness.
Machado accused Diaz of hounding her, a woman of color, at a book reading, after she criticized his book. But once the recording of that exchange was released, it became abundantly clear that the only thing that came out of Diaz's mouth was polite, soft-spoken disagreement about criticisms of his work.
Machado herself backed off of her accusations after the recordings were made public, and even made the strange accusation that the full release of the exchange was a form of "gaslighting" because it painted Junot Diaz in a positive light and caused her to question her own assessment of the situation.
I can't speak to the other accusations, although one of them was literally that he used the word "rape" at the dinner table, which seems like a bizarre accustion to put in print, especially because the "accuser" described him using the word in a way that was defensive of survivors of sexual assault.
But to me, it seems disingenuous to mention in passing simply that he was accused by Machado of misogyny without mentioning the direct, first hand evidence of the episode.
20
When did progressives become such puritans? "Canceling" great art because of the artist is insidious. It's insane.
18
Anyone who’s ever taught literature in college probably knows how hard it is to get many students to stop confusing an author with a narrator, to treat fiction as fiction instead of disguised autobiography. The cancellation of works of art because of something perceived or known about their creators’ biography seems misguided and not very good educational practice.
19
It's interesting that here the focus is entirely on how to treat the works of artists who've engaged in transgressive behavior. The worlds of science and mathematics are replete with examples of people, almost exclusively white men, who have been overtly, or merely casually, racist and sexist. Because of my academic background, the two examples which come most immediately to mind are R. A. Fisher and R.L. Moore, a prominent statistician and mathematician, respectively. No one, irrespective of gender or race, would refuse to use the techniques and ideas pioneered by either, or read their papers, no matter how repugnant their social ideas.
9
Education has been moving in the direction of imposing moral judgments as opposed to raising moral questions. Numerous problems ensue, but the one that jumps out at me is the idea that our present-day standards represent the highest development of human ethics. When justice becomes a form of self-worship, then it seems as if chaos is not far behind.
10
Burying literary works for reasons not related to the actual content deprives students of the chance to make their own decisions. I thought that was the whole purpose of education. Do by all means put the author in context but let's not allow a culture of perpetual outrage throw the baby out with the bathwater. His work is quite good and authentic.
Apart from that using Alexie's #MeToo transgressions as exemplary is even more problematic (I still haven't forgiven Gillibrand's zeal over Al Franken). If the citing here is accurate he did what he was supposed to do. He expressed desire for three different women. He asked them for permission before doing anything intimate. He asked. They said no and he stopped. All three seem upset that he no longer wanted to offer career support after that. I see that as nothing more than human nature. I defy any woman to claim she would not act similarly after having a romantic advance rejected. But there isn't any evidence the opposite was true, that he would never have engaged with them professionally unless sex was promised. There is some attempt to make that claim but I don't see it in the story here.
7
Suppose we found out that Homer, Dante, Petrarch,
Shakespeare, Blake, Tolstoy were horrible people.
Do we strike them from the reading list ?
Picasso was not a nice man, but if I am going to study
Modern Art I have to study his works whether I like him or not.
Are we not to read anything written by anyone in prison.
Rudolf Hoss wrote his autobiography while waiting to be executed due to what he did as a Commandant of Auschwitz. He was not an excellent writer, but to read his autobiography is to understand how an apparently normal person can carry out what he considered his duties while sending hundred of thousands to their deaths because of their ethnic/religious background and not lose a night's sleep over it. Not unlike Stalin signing execution orders into the night and then watching a film and having too much to drink, but never questioning the "righteousness of his actions".
Few of us are innocent, men have been pursuing women since the beginning of time. Maturity asks that you understand we all are capable of self-serving wickedness and that the "Purity Police" often have their own unsaid crimes.
If you really cannot read a literary work because the author
did some unsavory things, then perhaps you should not be in the course.
18
I'm not a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is a fatuous blow-hard who loves the sound of his own voice. Whenever he appears on television, I quickly switch the channel. His ego rivals the universe in its size. Even his Twitter comments irritate me with their undisguised arrogance. I detest him so much that I'm willing to believe any accusation leveled against him—yes, even infanticide.
However . . . National Geographic, the Museum of Natural History, and others conducted investigations for months into the sexual assault allegations against Tyson. Their investigations concluded the allegations to be without merit.
Yet according to this article—despite the conclusion reached by investigators—Tyson's technical books on astrophysics should be banned from schools regardless.
Truly, who is better suited to judge the merits of the allegations: A mob on Twitter using BuzzFeed articles as their sole evidence or the investigators hired by National Geographic and Museum of Natural History who interviewed the women and reviewed the evidence? Apparently, in this brave new world, the mob on Twitter—with their god-like vantage point—is better suited to decide a person's guilt or innocence.
This new reality is frightening to anyone who has studied the extremes of mob behavior in America's past. America had a severe problem with mob justice in the 1890s to 1920s. People breathed a sigh of relief when those days were past.
I dread to think what the future of the Digital Age might hold.
24
Another example of #metoo illiberalism, overreach and inability to account for nuance. "Canceling" artists who have been credibly accused of rape might be one thing (though as we know, the accusations against Woody Allen have serious credibility problems); but lumping in others who are accused of merely caddish behavior is illiberal, wrong, and why #metoo has utterly lost its way.
Cancel #metoo.
12
This is sort of like what Hitler & the Nazis started with their Decadent Art exhibition in 1937. So many parallels these days with those days, on both sides of the political spectrum. Glad I'm a senior.
6
If we are to judge all artists and writers on the basis of their personal behavior rather than the quality of their works we might as well just eliminate all such courses of study.
And you might as well toss out a whole lot of the rest of historical figures too. Considering Ben Franklin's behavior in Paris shall we toss him also onto the ash heap of history?
It is platitudinous political correctness like this that gives rise to the rise of reactionary figures like Trump.
14
This is terrifying to me. Please stop. Should I have never read Ezra Pound or F. Scott Fitzgerald, two anti-semites? I'm a feminist professor and this article raises the hair on the back of my neck.
36
Yup.
Sherman Alexie. Woody Allen. Roman Polanski.
Great artists, awful people. How to separate art from artist?
4
All the people decrying the “loss” of the works of people like Polanski and Picasso (largely men) might want to consider whether those very works of art helped to train future generations of male artists in the idea that rape and abuse of women are no big deal — which is clealy the attitude of many male commentators, packaged in the comforting statement that they “can separate the art from the artist.”
3
@RVC Does an artists work somehow infects people who consume it? Am I more likely to seduce young women because I grew up listening to David Bowie and Led Zeppelin?
The answer of course is absolutely not. Despite the offenses he committed offstage, James Brown's contribution to human culture is invaluable. But by your logic here, we should ignore that or else funk listeners will start beating women. This type of weak argument is liable to spread into the kind of hysteria that we saw in the 1980's when people thought that metalheads were going to become devils. And it leads you down the road to regulated speech and expression. Please don't deny the public the capacity to critically evaluate art and artists.
11
@Boaz If you want to argue that misogynistic works by misogynistic artists have zero influence on the level of misogyny in the people who enjoy those works, you can choose to believe that.
But your analogy is a false one. No one is talking about banning those books, films, and art. What they are saying is that no one is entitled to experience those works as part of a class. If someone wants to enjoy the misogyny in private -- or perhaps, "enjoy the gorgeous textural language" that decorates that misogyny, while "separating the art from the artist" -- they are still welcome to do so; it just isn't going to be as part of a college course. If that makes men feel upset because they prefer their misogyny in a classroom setting, then that is something they are going to have to grapple with. I'm sure it will be tough for them, but perhaps not as tough as it would be for a rape victim in a class to have to keep reading books by rapists.
And it's not like there aren't other good books out there. If you want the darker side of human nature, you can read Toni Morrison or George Eliot -- who as far as I know, didn't sexually assault anyone.
We don't have to insist on giving students' money and attention to horrible human beings when there is plenty of phenomenal work out there by people who weren't horrible. It's not like we're going to run out of great books.
1
@RVC I've considered it. The answer is "no."
Unless you have some actual evidence, as opposed to just trying to smear your interlocutors, by innuendo.
2
How about we ban anything ever created by anyone who was a deeply flawed human being (or at least temporarily accused of being so)? Of course, we'll end up with nothing of any cultural value left... which, come to think of it, seems to be the aim of the imbeciles who inhabit modern American academia.
7
Martina Myers' students at Piñon High School--"many of whom struggled with substance abuse and mental illness"--responded to Sherman Alexie's book by writing "poems in response, on native pride, addiction, self-acceptance and suicide attempts." Yeah, cancel that.
7
Of course, we'll never know the whole story. Shakespeare went to London but then he went back to Stratford. Maybe he couldn't have supported his family if he stayed in Stratford. What we do know about him indicates he was very close to one daughter, worried about his other daughter when she married a n'er-do-well, and his son died as a little boy. Apparently, Shakespeare grieved and that shows up in his plays written around the same time his boy died. Imagine the plays we would have lost if Shakespeare stayed in Stratford and became a glovemaker like his father.
As for modern artists, I don't like to monetarily support abusers. Probably won't buy their books. When I buy something written by someone who died 500 years ago, it's not going to affect their bottom line.
5
Continuing this line of thought - treating allegations as fact, treating the past by the standards of the present - we might as well close down every library, stop the streaming of every song, and kill the broadcast of every film. For everyone is 'guilty' of something. If we bow down to 'trigger' happy millennials and the over reach of the MeToo movement, our world will soon become artless. Enough already.
8
Then there were the Crusades and we still have religion? Oh yeah, someone said “forgive.”
4
I thank my lucky stars i attended college in the 1970s and had a first-rate film professor who taught me works by Fellini, Wilder, Fassbinder, Wertmuller, Ray, et al. With the exception of Fassbinder, i dont know much about the personal lives of these great directors. I wasnt interested in challenging the syllabus. I am sorry if the directors were horrible to others. Today i am a film buff with thousands of films in my head, and often i am dismayed at film illiteracy in younger generations. If you only examine work that makes you comfortable, you’ re not going to experience much of literature, music, or film. I cant imagine the past 40 years without Fassbinder. He gave me so much hope. I wouldnt have dated him, however. His list of moral “crimes” is lengthy. He’s gone; the films will persist because they address basic human situations with deep inquiry, sophistication, terror, humor.
6
The art is not the person. Maybe the art is the person the artist wishes s/he could be. Maybe the art is a confession. Maybe the art is an atonement. Who can know? Every single one of us would fail when studied under a microscope. Focus on the art.
9
"Shakespeare abandoned his family?" Would you say the same about the many women who leave their families to go be a nanny in another country so as to support their children?
If you're going to use a hammer, everything is going to look like a nail.
3
It is ALLEGED that Woody Allen abused his daughter. Ms.Lyon thinks that the allegation is equivalent to a finding of guilt. Let those like Ms Lyon and her many contemporary brothers and sisters live long enough to see themselves relegated to their proper place in a dystopian novel, worthy of the art of Orwell and Atwood.
13
@Big Frank I like some of Woody Allen's movies quite a bit, but, aside from those allegations, there are certainly choices he has made in his life and his art that reasonable people can find distasteful.
2
Banning books, art or their creators is often a knee jerk reaction to actions, language or ideas currently out of favor ethically, morally, or politically. To ban an otherwise non-controversial work solely because of the perceived immorality or politics of its creator is just wrong. Remember McCarthy's House Committee on Un-American Activities. Works of art stand on their own through the interpretation of the viewer. Or as in this case the lecturer. Teachers have the prerogative of using whatever works they want in most courses. Those works should stand or fall on their own merits.
3
The stunning sense of absolute moral authority by the average college Professor of English is astonishing and frightening.
It is probably a good thing that we never put them in charge of anything more important than an 18 year-old mind.
9
@SteveRR
What a sad way to see the world.
5
Yes. Emily Gowen and contributors, Thank you for this multi-view take on inclusive reading in education.
When considering how to teach any reading by any author, I place emphasis on the people I communicate with.
- Who is reading writing by a particular author? - How do we respond to the content in the writing and the histories of the authors?
- How might we act on our responses to support learning?
- How do we become more prepared to speak about difficult content?
How does reading help us confront othering in our daily navigation?
Working and conversing with contributor Clare Hayes-Brady and people who have introduced me to the reading I teach has helped me sort through these questions. We know each other because we research the some of the same authors, beginning with David Foster Wallace.
Teaching authors is about us as readers and how reading might form how we interact with each other.
2
Whether or not to teach specific material at the high school or college level should be up to the individual teacher, not a blanket policy of the school or the state. Whether a particular artistic work is currently "in" or "out" of popular favor often has little to do with the intrinsic merit of the work itself, but rather relates to changes in popular mores and values from one era to the next and how those changes reflect on the person of the artist in question and their historical "standing". Even when an artist's work that is important for an understanding of the historical period in which it was produced becomes disfavored in time there is often great merit in encouraging students to engage with it and discuss it. If the material is particularly controversial at the moment the fairest way to proceed, especially at the high school level, is for the teacher to list it as optional study material rather than requiring every student in the class to read it. Ultimately it's impossible to keep young people "safe" from things that will inevitably confront them once they are no longer sheltered within the walls of academia.
2
First, no author's work (or at most a very, very few) are so unique that there are no substitutes. So find someone else to inspire your students.
Second, if you feel compelled to continue using the works of abusers (thereby supporting their income) then take a different tack. Read or view their works as criminal pathologists, looking for evidence of their prurient predilections. It's always there and it provides a point of view useful to students.
6
@JFR
How prescient and wise you are, JFR.
How do you know your claims are true and valid ?
2
@John Brown
No prescience, but once one knows, one can make a decision about how to teach from the resource.
It's like not destroying Civil War statues but using them as a teaching moment by presenting them with explanatory plaques and additional context. Seems reasonable to me.
2
@JFR "Once one knows"...what? most if not all of these 'cancelled' targets are accused but not tried and even fewer convicted.
One problem America's college students seem to have is that they have watched so much reality TV they can't separate fiction from the author. Somehow everything is a autobiography.
Cancel culture is the worst of our obsession with so called moral purity and will lead to nothing but more partisan division in generations to come.
3
If Woody Allen did what he's accused of he would definitely be an abhorent person but there is no real proof and given there's only one accusation and it was during a custody dispute I would withhold a guilty verdict. On the other hand if Diaz and Alexie are guilty of everything they're accused of there is nothing there that's really anybody else's business.
17
@Lisa R
I feel the same way. My husband was accused by his ex-wife of having a sexual deviancy that could harm their child during their divorce case, and the child welfare dept of NYC investigated and found it a false accusation. Mia Farrow's accusation was likewise investigated by, I think, Connecticut authorities and was determined to be unfounded. I continue to enjoy Woody Allen's movies without guilt. Just because a person is a lousy date (Aziz Ansari) or a bad romantic partner (lots of men) doesn't mean beans to me.
14
@Aurence Couldn't agree more! Mia and her 'journalist' son Ronan have been on a mission to defame Woody in the court of public opinion for some time now because they couldn't win in an actual court.
Yeah I get it - the thing with Soon-Yee is not my cup of tea, but they have been together for a long time now and by all appearances seem quite happy. Nothing illegal happened there. Don't worry they aren't coming to your dinner party.
Allen's biggest sin in the last decade is that his movies have gotten predictable and not that interesting. Kind of like his compatriots in music (Paul McCartney) and literature (Stephen King)
2
Every time this conversation comes up, I rely on the Miles Davis theory: Love his music, don't love how the man treated the people in his life. I can separate the two. Artists are notoriously imperfect, and it could be argued--for some artists, at least--that without their moral contradictions, they wouldn't have reached the same level of art.
And judging whether to not to appreciate or study a particular artist based on their personal lives is a sliding scale. Who's acceptable? Updike? Diaz? Who's beyond the pale? Michael Jackson? Woody Allen? Too subjective. Appreciate the art, be clear-eyed about the artist.
24
@Steinbeck Reefs I have personally tried practicing your argument but I still have trouble separating the art from the artist. I cannot watch a Woody Allen or Roman Polanski movie without thinking about the accusations against them. The accusations taint the viewing experience for me.
6
Let’s ban the Declaration of Independence and Constitution....slave owners helped write. Humans are complex and doing things considered wrong should not poison everything you have done. Further, one must view works in the context of the period in which one lived. We may not have liken the unenlightened time, but the activity now considered offensive may not have been so at the time being considered.
27
if they want to exclude all writers and poets guilty of philandering, unwanted romantic obsessions, one night stands, propositions and lust, that's quite a list, starting before Ovid. If they wish to exclude artists, those who paint, sculpt, etc. the list would grow longer and museum walls would be almost bare. It is a flaw in the nature of some who produce work to use their gifts for sexual needs. This is a disturbing fact to those who admire them and are moved by them. It should be noted as a serious character problem. It is no way discredits what they have produced that has lasting value. If the value is trivial, their transgressions are more apparent, but why bother teaching trivial creators? All women (and men) can do is cite the artist's moral failing, acknowledge it, and then find the value, if there is value, in the work. Morality police in these cases are no better than book burners or those who disfigured art work they found sexually explicit.
9
Another reason to stay away from the Humanities. Go to subjects like Engineering where the virtuecrats don't decide who is morally approved....
8
@The Logger Congratulations on inventing a much needed word for our times!
2
@The Logger
Engineering is notoriously difficult for women.
Thanks for the advice, though.
2
What about works by women who have sexually harassed others? Avital Ronell of NYU was determined by a Title IX investigation to have sexually harassed a student. Should her published works also be banned from classroom because of her behavior?
5
@Jim Harassers, male or female, should be subjected to the same standards. I'm not sure where I personally stand on whether or not to "ban" works, but I certainly believe the same logic should apply to men and women.
1
I have not seen a Woody Allen film for many, many years --not since allegations came against him. Nevertheless, it's clear he was often a master filmmaker and a brilliant writer.
At what point, however, do you stop teaching not because of the worthiness of the art but because of the alleged bad behavior of artist?
Further, why stop with art? Sir Isaac Newton executed many counterfeiters as one of his day jobs. Should we lock away Principia because he was a ruthless butcher? What do we lose if we do so?
These acts punish students, not the artists and writers and thinkers who may (or may not) have done wrong. It cheats them out of making their own choices and imperils no one to do what they are accused of doing.
4
Life is going to be pretty bland once we stop enjoying the contributions of men (and perhaps some women) who have been accused of sexual misconduct!
10
And don’t forget to use current sensibilities to judge.
3
Prof Gowen says that in any artist's life there is going to be something objectionable. In any PERSON'S LIFE THERE IS GOING TO BE SOMETHING OBJECTIONABLE, including yours, Prof Gowen. The value of anything must not be collapsed into its maker's life. Your auto mechanic does fabulous work? Now it has emerged that he beats his wife. Hence, his work as auto mechanic is substandard? Go ahead and condemn him morally, but try to understand the logical disaster and embarrassment you are when you throw out his work.
11
I take exception with whomever writes your headlines--Junot Diaz was not "toppled by #MeToo Accusations". He was accused, investigated and found innocent of the charges made against him. That's vindication. If there is an injustice it's that sales of his books are affected by false claims.
I realize that the stories of men like Diaz and former Senator Al Franken don't fit today's "accuse and dispose" narrative. However, I would think the Times should care about keeping the record straight.
41
oh please.. you would have to ban even those authors, directors, producers and screenwriters who were not "taken down" by #metoo. Let's also remember very few have been convicted in a court of law, most of these "Take downs" are by hearsay only.. gossip, rumor and accusations. Welcome to China or Russia people.. guilty by mere accusation. Say goodbye to Kubrick, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Robin Williams, and hundreds more, maybe thousands. Forget about musicians and artists, too many too mention. "Provocative conversation"? No!!! More like Chairman Mao's inquisition.
11
This sounds like book-banning under a PC banner. Welcome to 1984 ... uh, I mean 2019.
14
I wish we were still allowed to bully. These people should just be decried as soft, and mentally/intellectually weak and then dismissed.
Compared to Hemingway (who actually fought against real fascism) and also fought to end Ezra Pound's exile, these people are just pathetic. Maybe they can cancel Hemingway for doing that while they are at it.
6
There's a difference between being simply a consumer of art, and studying art in order to develop a greater appreciation of it, and perhaps appy what you've learned to your own work and life.
If you're just a consumer than of course you can freely decide which works of which artist you want to enjoy.
But if you are a student signed up for a class that will teach you how to critically read or view or otherwise interact with artworks, then you must be presented and wrestle with classic, iconic, or especially representative works. And they need to be throughly discussed and considered.
Picasso was a rump but it would be much more difficult to understand the development of modern art without studying his stuff. As someone who draws and paints, I find his work amazing, beautiful, challenging, and instructive but I wouldn't want to sit down to dinner with him. Nor would I purchase one of his pieces if that enriched him personally.
13
This is madness.
I wholeheartedly support not bringing writers or artists who have abused women to campus or hiring them to teach.
But to ban books and artwork by these artists is insane.
Woody Allen's work can be assessed in light of his history or simply as itself absent biographical speculation about Allen.
If you stop studying the work of great or important artists because they treated people badly, not only would you annex some of our greatest artists but you are only censoring those artists against whom complaints have been publicly lodged. Many artists who've abused people will skirt by undetected.
It's stupid to ban studying work because of an artist's history or abuse allegations - which may be inaccurate or unsubstantiated.
I spent years in academia but now regard it as a morass of confused and cowardly ideas.
95
@fast/furious
I don't think that being taught in class or not is a big deal to most writers. I don't think Samuel Beckett wrote novels and plays with the hope of being assigned to undergraduates. I get your point about censorship, but I don't think the writers themselves (mostly dead) care one way or the other. I highly doubt that living writers such as Amis, Franzen, Chabon, Palahniuk, Eugenides, Moody give a fig about being taught in seminars and workshops. Their livelihood comes from sales and deals.
2
@JDV
I understand. I was responding to the other posters suggestion that banning writers from the classroom would somehow hurt the writers (not the students).
1
How does Updike figure in here? He's a brilliant writer. Is he accused of being abusive in real life, or is the argument that his novels and characters contribute to an atmosphere of misogyny?
Wallace and Mailer are second rate writers. No big loss.
Plenty of male writers whom nobody reads (anymore) remain acceptable: Wallace Stevens, James Merrill, John Ashbery, Henry James, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, F Scott Fitzgerald, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Browning, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth...
My advice is to simply avoid novels written after 1945. One could avoid the novel as a genre entirely ;) There's plenty of verse to teach and study.
1
@Anti-Marx You have obviously never read Mailer's Armies of the Night and what's wrong with Henry James?
@Renee Hack
nothing is wrong with henry james. i love him. i put him on the "good" list.
i've read little mailer. in truth, i don't read much fiction from after ww2. i do love updike and nabokov.
The number of authors and artists who have been accused of sexual abuse is extremely disturbing. It is unnerving to see just how many people that we looked up to are not worthy of our respect. However, we definitely should not stop studying or looking at these works. It is crucial to have these tough conversations in order to raise awareness about sexual abuse and work towards preventing harassment in our society. Additionally, although it is important to continue studying these works, we must avoid becoming desensitized to abuse. The study of these particular works should be coupled with the conversation of the horrors surrounding sexual harassment. Doing so is the only way to work towards progress.
2
@Shreya
In the real world, things happen that should not happen,
but they are never going to stop happening.
Part of being an adult is realising there is very little
progress in human morality. The powerful will always misuse the less powerful.
1
@Shreya
So you are reading every book and looking at every piece of art and listening to every song thru the lens of their personal story? How sad. Maybe just appreciate it for what it is on the page, in your ear, in your eye.
If you limit yourself to morally approved artists, you will find art to be in very very short supply. Today's morality will shift and in 25 years you may be the one on trial.
1
Why do we hold artists to different standards than other people? Steve Jobs was by many accounts a deplorable person yet people have no qualms using an iPhone. Would you turn down treatment from a doctor who was found to be abusive? Bottom line is the sort of drive and ambition that propels people to become successful in almost any line of work also often carries a dark side of controlling, abusive and manipulative behavior.
I also find it interesting that the people are so quick to turn people into social pariahs for their behavior are also the same people who condemn our current criminal justice system. Apparently it's easier to forgive someone for robbing a person at gun point than to forgive them for being politically incorrect.
32
@Cyclocrosser
We hold writers to a different standard, because they are supposed to the voice of humanity. Literature is supposed to be the secular scripture of civilization. We look to writers like Proust and Shakespeare and George Eliot for insight into human nature and, indirectly, for moral guidance. They are the (un)acknowledged legislators of our moral compass in a post-divinity age.
8
@Anti-Marx
If they are the voice of humanity, then it is even more essential to teach those whose voices are tainted by scandal.
First, it acknowledged that even those who are less than perfect can create something that is of value to others. This lesson, especially when taught to high school and college students, will resonate in their lives when they feel that some of their actions have made them worthless to the wider world.
Additionally, talking about the failings of the artist gives insight into the works. Either those failings are expressed in the works themselves, shining a light on them, or the works transcend the failings, showing that art does not have to imitate life.
4
@Anti-Marx —Proust stabbed rats with pins for sexual pleasure (his, not theirs). This is moral guidance? Luckily, we know so little about Shakespeare that we can’t “pin” anything abhorrent on him. Unless he is actually the Earl of Oxford or Francis Bacon or Sir Walter Raleigh or...
4
Should we ban works and discoveries in math and science because someone is a horrible person. We know murder and rape are horrible, but what about psychological abuse of a partner or child. Who will be the arbiter of what is so horrible whatever is attributed from them has no merit. We should judge the work for what it is and not what the person did. Personally we can make our own decision about what value it has.
Incorporating many female and minority voices is equally important discussion that is separate from this issue.
12
@Casale Same with, say, economists. Or political scientists. If they had numerous affairs and treated their spouses like garbage, and took up with younger partners, and had babies out of wedlock because they wanted to and could, do we throw their ideas and work out the window? This quickly snowballs, doesn't it?
So point out their foibles, their moral failures and also critique their work and use what works.
That's not all that difficult. Is it?
2
We just celebrated Banned Books Week. It looks like a lot more titles will be added to the banned list now that adults seem to need someone to screen books for them.
Hallelujah for Public Libraries, where your reading tastes are confidential, and books from all kinds of authors are on the shelves. Holy Faulkner! I never thought it would come to this.
18
Can a person who has sinned, misbehaved, assauted, whatever EVER be allowed redemption in this world, or is he - and we specifically seem to be talking "he" here - go through the rest of an otherwise admired career banned from performing, publishing or otherwise creating art, tall buildings, or even working at the car wash, forever?
If a person is allowed to admit their bad behavior, make some sort of amends where advisable, and earnestly apologize, can we as a society not ignore his past (again, it's "him") but allow a chance to move on? Or is that mal intentioned hand where it clearly doesn't belong (or often enough worse) rate a life sentence? It's an honest question. I'm not sure where this is supposed to go and, in some circumstances it seems to have gone too far.
7
I am reminded of the recent Times piece on a current Nazi art exhibit in Amsterdam - which is billed just like that - Nazi Art and Design, as if the creators and their Nazi philosophies could be separated from what they created. It is more than ok to question the worthiness and appropriateness of a piece - whether it is literature, or design etc - if it were created by someone (or a group) who has done reprehensible things. It is more than ok to decide that such a person is not worthy of our support or study.
Let's ban any artist who is not a paragon of virtue according to our current narcissistic tendencies. I love feeling superior to artists I don't like!
32
This is not exactly analogous, but I am reminded of the centuries-long argument that Shakespeare could not have been the author of his plays because he wasn't from the upper class or didn't have a university education. And then there's Ezra Pound, the lyric poet and the traitor. And so many other such discrepancies between life and art.
But isn't it a kind of wonder that someone boring or obnoxious or even morally repugnant might create works that are glorious to experience?
I do, however, see the argument about personally choosing not to enrich a monster.
5
Let's also remove all Picasso works from the museums. Only artists who were perfect should be considered.
38
Share the authors’ histories.
Explore their artwork.
Permit the history of each author the influence how the reader feels about that author’s work.
I will never hear Michael Jackson’s “Pretty Young Thing” and not cringe at its title and lyrics. It should not, however, be scrubbed from existence.
Celebration and examination (of any subject or object) are two very different things.
19
@X I turn of MJ’s music when it comes on the radio. But that is a personal choice. His art is not diminished by what he did, but my enjoyment of his art is.
1
Female artists too might have flaws or have behaved less than perfectly in their personal lives. “In any artist’s life there is going to be something objectionable, but that’s not an excuse to close ourselves off from engaging with the art.”
11
"...was relieved when the teacher sent out a PDF." The teacher should be called out for violation of copyright.
15
@Ben
Yikes! Guilty!
2
@Ben "...she might not have wanted to financially support Mr. Díaz by buying his book, and was relieved when the teacher sent out a PDF." was the sentence that jumped out at me as well. Unless the artist is deceased, the work is in the public domain, or copyright is violated, putting that works in the classroom means each teacher and student is handing that artist cash money. That act is on the other side of a stark line from the obvious benefits of a lively academic discussion of sexual abusive artists.
@Ben
Universities can legally license and pay for electronic copies of books for use in their classes.
More curious is how naive the student that received a 'free' PDF is.
4
I'm glad to see more nuance showing up in this topic. My view is art should be criticized separately from consideration of the artists's personal life. And that a separate critique of the biography is not inappropriate if it adds to the discussion. And it often does.
One huge advance we could be making is understanding cultural norms through history. And how each shift in norms conceived the one it rebels against or evolves from. Then understand our own reactions as a shift of norms and anticipate how it might be understood, evolved from, or reacted against in the inevitable Next shift of norms. That might help preserve the good of the shift while mitigating its excessive reactionary aspects and thus prolonging the good.
8
People are mistaking education for veneration, learning for worship.
I read excerpts from the works of Otto Strasser and John Calhoun in high school. I was assigned these readings because learning about history sometimes means learning about people who were not particularly pleasant.
60
With being a student myself I see both sides of this argument. I can relate to the side of the student and how reading an article or book from an author who has preformed many unjustifiable acts may seem as if you are supporting these acts. I also see the other perspective of it is important to read these articles and books because they teach important ideals and perspectives and have been around for hundreds of years. I personally agree with the idea that it is important to study different perspectives no matter what the author has done. These articles and books are being taught for a reason and are important ideals humanity can learn and grow from. What does push this boundary and would cause me not to read this article or book is if the author states personal opinions or experiences that support their arguments. By doing this it gives no factual evidence and does not properly support the argument. It also causes me to judge the person more than the writing itself due to the background and reputation of the author. Overall, this topic is something that has become a very current issue inside of the classroom and definitely needs to be properly addressed and handled.
2
By all means, let's get rid of Hemingway, Picasso, Salinger, Woody Allen and on and on.
Let's define artistic achievement as being principally about liking and respecting the artist as a person, not about what they write, paint, film, etc. Surely this is the path to greater wisdom through the study of art and culture.
76
@Sparky Please add a snark tag, some people will take you literally.
9
@Sparky yes
4
This is a terrific topic for discussion. All the more reason works of art should not be banned. In certain respects - that is the purpose of art, to give us the opportunity to look at ourselves and our culture - reflect and then share our thoughts with each other. That's how we evolve.
9
Thank you for this article. I've been grappling with this issue myself, in my own consumption of artists' work. For example, I've been a longtime fan of Placido Domingo's, but when credible allegations came out against him recently I realized that I could never again go back to see him perform. Of course I might not have the opportunity anyway because opera companies will probably not let him perform again, which is a good thing.
The life-altering effects of sexual abuse are so profound for victims that I appreciate the seriousness with which academics are taking this problem and discussing it in the classroom. I also appreciate that some professors are leaving problematic people out of syllabi. If nothing else, they're making room for other artists and writers who deserve attention, and many of those artists are probably women.
15
@C. Hart Concerts have only been cancelled in the USA. What does that tell you of our PC culture gone mad situation?
15
To assign is to lionise, discussion or not. And the tendency to accept, promote and lionise writers of one gender and often one color as genius and great is intimately related with the gatekeepers who decide what is 'great' sharing and relating to their gendered perspectives.
Reinforcing that on a syllabus reinforces the abuse that we purport to ponder, regardless of whether we take half a lecture to point it out.
It's not about excluding, per se, but about bringing balance to what we include. and questioning, more deeply, the real origins of greatness in a context with a high degree of exclusion and arbitrariness.
10
If we ban books on this basis our libraries will be half empty!
66
@AAC
"To assign is to lionise"
Well - no - to assign is to challenge a student to think - to place a work in perspective - to be challenged.
At least it 'used' to be.
6
W. H. Auden was adamant that we should read texts completely apart from a writer’s life and not as a contextual background to the work. He was arguing for artistic license and freedoms from lense readings. That is partly what the “New Criticism” was all about. Should we not read Hemingway?
Every human being has behaved in ways that they would feel ashamed about were those actions to become public.
Political Correctness is becoming what Auden called “Liberal Fascism.”
50
Where you say, "Do Works by Men Toppled by #MeToo Belong in the Classroom?", I think you actually mean to say: "Do Works by Men Who Have Assaulted Women Belong in the Classroom?" Once again for the dudes in the back: It's about men behaving badly, not about how many scalps women can claim.
5
@Jeff B You left out "accused" and "alleged" because many of the examples in this case never actually showed factual proof. For example in the case of Neil Degrasse Tyson he voluntarily went through a whole investigation and was exhonerated (some of the accusations were hilarious. Of course somebody is going to be interested in your partially visible tattoo), but I saw many people who wanted to throw him under the bus before the investigation was even completed.
18
What annoys me, is that Junot Diaz's writing has been dripping with misogyny since the beginning, and now suddenly the revelation that he is a petty misogynist who uses his position to abuse women is treated as though ti is the surprise of the year. The question for me is not should this author be included, but why was this author so celebrated to begin with? All of his writing even his confession read more like bragging from a nerd who wants revenge on women, not works of great literary insight.
If I were a professor I would not ban but would limit reading of Diaz in my class because of the sexism and mediocrity of his works, not because of the accusations against him.
As for the others, I would say if there work is crucial to the topic go ahead and include them, talk about it too. We don't learn from avoiding the difficult topics.
8
@maria5553
Agree completely. My class of urban streetwise kids tired of him quickly so it was an easy decision to make to move on to other writers who have something more to say.
3
Picasso was a notorious misogynist. Gauguin left his wife and children to paint (and sleep with) teenagers in Tahiti. Beethoven was a horrible person who abused his nephew. The list goes on. It's worthwhile knowing these facts, and museums are now posting this information (as was done in the recent Gauguin exhibit at the de Young in SF), but it doesn't prevent me from enjoying their work as art. I don't think this "movement" is sustainable given the frailty of human beings.
50
Book banning and its relatives in the fine arts is a sport is hardly new with #MeToo - it goes back millennia. Most art, Plato observed, has a political dimension, and youth ought to shielded from politically unpopular ideas. The Greeks, Romans, medieval scholars, ... up to the present day, including southern conservatives and northern liberals all have had strong opinions about censoring ideas inconsistent with their points of view. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
8
If we ignore art created by humans who are morally dubious, art will soon cease to exist.
37
Nothing to be done about art or teachers. Teachers need to make judgements and they need the freedom therein. Artist that muck about with their legacy do so with the full knowledge that they could be punished artistically. Art is culture and disparagement come with being a pig.
2
When does it become censorship? I am afraid it already has.
Some of these authors though were popular literary darlings but I think are now also being reevaluated to a more accurate assessment of their worth.
Apparently we must erase from the past any trace of works by imperfect people. That would cover a whole lot of literature, art and science. That would also shorten the time that needed to be spent on studying literature and the arts. College exams would be a lot easier, for sure when the forbidden is excised from memory! It is too much to ask that we ignore the person's behavior and separate it from the works. Ignorance is strength.
10
Well, Picasso cheated on his wives, Leonardo bilked his customers, Robert Millikan ignored contrary data in his famous oil drop experiment, and on and on. We still value their work, sometimes in crowds of thousands or dollars by the million because the work overall is good or great.
Maybe the students of these questioned works could study them to see what influence, if any, the alleged abuse could have had on the eventual outcome. Picasso painted women he loved and later painted them after he stopped loving them. The respective portraits look very different. It's important to understand context, not only of an artist's work but also of the observer's surroundings.
12
The value of a work of art, literature, music, etc. cannot be tied to the behavior of the creator. If it is, it creates a precedent that devalues freedom of expression and more importantly it devalues education.
11
Unfortunately, those with extreme moral purity and political correctness seldom (almost never) create compelling art. Being human is a complicated endeavor, and some of the very characteristics that get artists in trouble are the same characteristics that fuel their creative work. Mother Teresa probably would not have made a great artist.
21
@Jeff
Mother Teresa didn't even make a good saint as she refused the application of necessary medicines including pain medication to the poor. There was a BBC documentary about this that included interviews with many doctors that worked for her in addition to local Indians who observed her cruelty first hand.
3
@Jeff Excellent point. Much easier to scold and ban than to invent and create.
1
As a survivor of abuse, I decry the suggestion that we censor materials on this, or any basis. Nor should we censor information concerning the wreter/artist/etc. Truth is that not all accusations are valid, or of equal wrong. Nor does a person's wrongdoing in one arena fully define them, their value, or talent.
32
Shakespeare abandoned his family? News to this Shakespeare professor. Yes, he moved to London to work in the theater scene, because that's where the theaters were. He wrote sonnets about male and female lovers, but all conventional sonnets were about the latter and some unconventional ones about the former; in any case highly stylized poems are not autobiography. Meanwhile he was attempting to get his family a coat of arms and buying one of the best houses in Stratford for them, and when his son Hamnet died he wrote a certain play about grief called "Hamlet."
Stick with Woody Allen for an example of a terrible dad.
8
So, should the Metropolitan Opera ban the works of that noted antisemite Richard Wagner? Should I not note his contributions to the language and literature of Western music in my classes because of his many personal failings? Would someone please compile a list of personal sins that result an artist's work being banished from polite company? That would be REALLY helpful to all us unenlightened souls who teach and/or enjoy the arts, in spite of the fact that many (most?) works of art are produced by people who are flawed in one way or another.
14
Then there are false or at very least questionable allegations and accusations. Apparently one's claiming to "feel uncomfortable" is sufficient to trigger a complaint of harassment. What of a female teacher/professor who claims to feel "uncomfortable" because a male colleague seems more popular on the campus than she? Should actual "due process"
be afforded to the accused? What about making sincere attempts to remove bias from investigations? (The interesting treatment of Al Franken, for example.)
How many false or very vague ("I felt uncomfortable . . .") allegations have resulted in an accused individual's loss of employment? Should we establish ethical and/or morality tests and investigations before publishing an author's or displaying, showing, recording (etc.) an artist's or a performer's work?
10
A couple of thoughts:
1. We need the ability to distinguish between the person and what the person produces. Most often, the art or work of a person doesn't carry the taint of whatever moral deficiencies a person has or had. Even if it does, then certainly at the college level, the work can be presented with in the context of a person's life.
2. Consider the student. In elementary school, it would be reasonable to mention that George Washington was a slave owner. In High School it would be reasonable to discuss George Washington's slave ownership in the context of society of the time. In college it would be reasonable to discuss the long-term societal impact of slavery both on black and white US citizens. Keep it appropriate to the intellectual and emotional development of the audience.
3. Consider the offense. Clearly some are more problematic
than others. Was the offense life-long, or was it an isolated incident?
4. Allow for redemption. If a person admits to the offense(s), is contrite, offers restitution and doesn't re-offend, we should recognise the growth and allow redemption.
5. Above all recognise that we are human ... that we all are flawed ... and that even the most flawed person can create something that is transcendent.
15
If the work product is worthy, it should be read, viewed, studied. Humans are flawed creatures. If we ignored all the work of people who were immoral or “aren’t great” we would be missing a lot of great art and literature and would be poorer for it. Because even if the creators aren’t great, their work may be. And besides, are we really that fragile or one dimensional that we can’t appreciate the art without lionizing the artist?
6
This debate brings to mind an incident from one of my classrooms a few years back. I recently retired from teaching college writing and literature, and one course I liked was a Medieval and Renaissance survey course, beginning with "Beowulf." This great 9th Century poem deals with the travels and travails of a young man learning to be king and fighting various monsters along the way. Women play a very small role in it, recounting only one truly lovely queen (in the present of the narrative) and a fairly nasty one in the past. This, of course, allowed me to discuss briefly the place of women in this society, not a very large or influential power position at all. Women were chattel, to be honest, and it would be centuries more before this began to change. In the middle of my brief presentation on this issue, a young lady stood up rather abruptly, marched up to my desk, and loudly stated, "So you are one of THEM!" She then left the room in a huff as my students watched her agape, then watched me watching them. I burst out laughing, the only real response. Yes, she had a developing sense of her own feminism, etc., but to blame me for women's treatment in the 9th Century fails to demonstrate any level of insight or understanding. She went on to drop the course, never allowing a further discussion of the matter within that classroom where it should have happened. What can I say? The folly of youth? Do we not teach lit of the past? Maybe a little introspection can help.
52
Works by men who commit assault or other violence against women are works that reflect a pervasive culture of misogyny that has dominated for millennia. We should not pretend that because women have gained some agency and parity that we now live in a world that is somehow independent of that history. If anything, we live in a time in which much public discourse is a direct response to it. All art reflects the time in which it is created and should be examined as a product of cultural and historical context. Woody Allen is a brilliant filmmaker. He has also committed vile acts within his family. His art and his actions both reflect an individual life lived in a specific time and place. He is still the voice of a generation - a generation that perhaps thought itself brilliant enough to be above scrutiny. Young people should be taught to read/view/respond critically rather than given the option to reject aspects of our cultural heritage that they find unpleasant. History is full of genocide, power grabs, assassinations, scandals, humiliations, and countless forms of abuse that, however appalling to subsequent generations, was justified and normalized in its time and in many cases has had lasting effects that are evident in today's culture and politics. Denying the cultural relevance of a bad man erases history. To what end?
7
I am so, so disappointed to read yet another article about what will happen to men and their work.
The whole point of the #Metoo movement was to focus on the things that happen to women and emphasize that they matter. Why couldn't this story have been reframed to focus on what stories by women instructors are including now that perhaps they had ignored in the past? Have they made an effort to look for books by women who were abused or blackballed or harassed or marginalized out of the canon? Which ones are particularly worthy of greater attention?
9
If you take books out of the classroom, the next step would be to take them out of the school library, then the public library, then bookstores, then online retailers.
7
It's an awkward question. By this reasoning, we'd have to get rid of the work of numerous capable but morally corrupt people. In many cases, this would be tragic. I'd hate to lose the paintings of Caravaggio, for instance.
On the other hand, adhering to this reasoning would let us expunge Trump from history--which sounds great to me.
At least Caravaggio had a redemptive gift. Even Woody Allen has a gift, much as that gift is tainted now. But Trump? His only gift may be his tax returns. I'm all in favour of preserving those, and studying them in perpetuity.
5
I read and delight in works that set my mind on fire. I don't expect, nor do I demand, that such works be born from perfect people who lead perfect lives.
Those comrades who work to disseminate to our young pioneers only correct sanctioned opinions from correct sanctioned people are assuredly vested in protecting our young pioneers from questionable ways of thinking and wrong ways of remembering! We must make the future pure! I salute such comrades for their patriotism and right thinking!
But such comrades are really not interested in literature.
4
In my mind I answer this question by considering how society overall wins or loses by excluding them.
A researcher who submits a paper for publication and undergoes a double-blind review process gets accepted based on the research value of the work itself. A paper that is worthy, is accepted and society benefits. If we were to pre-screen papers based on the content of the person's character then some potentially society-changing articles may not be published. Does the harasser of poor character benefit? Yes, but he (or she) still has the reputation to deal with publicly.
My mother used to advise against "cutting off your nose to spite your face."
5
Open up a useful and relevant conversation by all means, but to “sideline” artists who have behaved badly will leave us a world bereft of art. Mozart, Picasso, Pollack, Mailer, Dickens...the list goes on and on and on....
6
Leonard Bernstein once said, speaking of Richard Wagner and his virulent anti- semitism, “ I hate Wagner , but I hate Wagner on my knees.” That pretty much describes my attitude to DW Griffith, Hemingway, and any number of other repellent people who create great art. I would encourage teachers to include a biography of the artist that adresses the unacceptable behavior and finish with a welcome to the world of adulthood, dealing with complex motives and outcomes. Saying you don’t want to take away the role model by telling them of his abusive behavior is exactly akin to telling your child that you can’ t exclude touch- y, feel- y Uncle Howard from Thanksgiving dinner, because he always brings the wine.
5
Two words get repeated over and over again in this piece, "allegations" and "accusations". These concepts worked just fine during the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witchcraft trials, the Sen. McCarthy great communist hunt of the 1950's, the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, and in many other instances. Enough! We are a nation of laws and accusations must be backed up with tangible evidence or they have no merit. If you want to allege and accuse, fine, but make sure you can back up your claims. Otherwise sit down and be quiet.
5
I think we should only assign works of fiction by perfect, upstanding, morally irreproachable people. It will make for a wonderfully short reading list.
3
The bigger issue here is how to deal with sexual harassment and not have it tried in the press instead of civil or criminal court.
2
@Paul Of course, the reason it has come to be tried in the press is that it is nearly always tossed out of the courts.
2
@MC
Because the courts require concrete evidence, not just accusations. What an unfair system that is.
3
@MC -thank you for your reply....it's not tossed out in the courts...it never gets there....always tried in the press and depending on which enablers and co dependents on both sides determine the outcome.
We must, at all costs, avoid "triggering" the little cupcakes who are paying so much for what they believe is an "education." It isn't--it's indoctrination. By philistines and the politically-motivated and the charlatans who invent accusations faster than they can be adjudicated (if they ever are). Let us never actually trouble the little tuition-payers; let there be no discomfort in the halls of ivy, nothing to disabuse the 20-year-olds that they know everything about the world and its complexities--hey! says so right here on this diploma!
2
A person’s work of art is completely separate from the person. Of course it’s unfortunate when an author or other creator of art turns out to be a sexual abuser or whatever else. But it should have no bearing at all on the work they have created. That’s just taking all this political correctness way too far.
2
So.. Wagner's music should no longer taught / discussed?
1
They're going to have to go back and cancel quite a lot of work. Why is some people's gut reaction to shut people out entirely as if they didn't exist? Study the work, study the artist, don't shut things out because they make you uncomfortable.
5
Let us hide from human nature and its foibles. Let us never be "triggered" into thinking about anything that we shouldn't know about. Let us sanitize the mind.
4
In art history it’s totally valid to look at biography, and it should of course be done accurately. But it’s not all we look at: we also see and care about form, craft, symbolism, theme and execution. That bad people have (and will continue to) make good art is a given. I see value in discussing the work while also not shying away from the personal flaws, if known. A classroom has a slant, but it should also encourage full disclosure.
6
One should be honest about the writer as well as the writing. Sometimes it makes understanding the text easier rather than more perplexing. As a female writer I try to balance concerns with the author and the work. It shows often art is greater than the artist who created it.
24
I love the idea that part of the teaching of art by flawed creators is a discussion of the syllabus and whether that art should be included. This is what college should be; not just being exposed to great art, but talking about how that art and its creators fit into the culture.
70
Agreed! But the process needs to begin in high school. Young students are too sheltered from the critical, independent thinking process. Thus, this over reactions in college.
1
A healthy learning process for younger kids too! they need exposure to thinking about life as complex, gray, not black and white.
1
An author’s personal life should not affect whether we teach their work. All that matters is whether the text is useful to its readers, and a text can be useful despite its author’s personal failures (or, for that matter, their politics). By analogy, I doubt anyone would abstain from taking a medicine because its inventor committed sexual assault. It’s perfectly consistent to recognize the immense value of something while condemning the behavior of its creator. Literature is no different - if we think that a story, poem, or play will help our students to become better humans, then we should teach it.
That said, there are still reasons to shake up the literary canon. As our world becomes more socially and culturally complex, it’s useful for students to read texts that address issues like race, gender, and class. But students also need exposure to works that grapple with mankind’s deepest philosophical questions, and so they will always need access to the canonical authors whose texts do this best. No revelation about Shakespeare’s personal behavior would convince me that we shouldn't teach “Hamlet” to students.
144
@M This is a false dichotomy. New medicines typically have very few, or no reasonably priced alternatives -making them a monopoly. Conversely, the arts are often filled with myriad works and performers that can all serve as substitutes to fulfill the role of providing a good example to someone studying or patronizing that particular field.
I would argue that the character of someone in the humanities actually matters a great deal because we can so easily choose from numerous works of similar quality by people who weren't awful humans.
When teachers are making choices about which works to use as examples, who deserves to be lifted up in the classroom? Is it the virtuous author who wrote a great novel, or the lecherous sexual harasser who wrote a great novel? Artistic life will go on if Wallace is replaced with Coetzee on the syllabus, just like it did before Wallace was born.
8
@M
Not that simple.
Where do you draw the line.
Murder. Mass murder. Rape. Torture.
Context matters. It cannot be true that all that matters is whether the text is useful.
It is all up for grabs.
4
@M : Good point about medicine. It leads to a higher stakes discussion about the use of scientific data obtained in highly unethical ways, a good example is here:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/holocaust/experiments.html
Going through that exercise gives you some much needed perspective on this discussion of the teaching of art: There are similar dilemmas outside of art, and some of them are bigger and more excruciating.
2
The question is fundamentally flawed; what will we be left with if every work of art or technology is only measured by a human's worst mistake. Yes, women and victims need protection, but pretending that important works don't exist is not the way to do it.
138
I am biased, given that I am and always will be a "separate the art from the artist" kind of person.
I would venture to suggest that there are a lot of valid reasons at any point in time to reassess the literary (and cinematic, and artistic, etc.) canon, and a lot of work that hangs on for decades can be jettisoned for reasons have nothing to do with the morals, beliefs, or behavior of its makers. Wallace seemed once to stand for an entire generation, but in the thirty years since his debut his generation has created a lot of really good work. Mailer and Updike hardly look as indispensable as they once did. Woody Allen is a pretty uneven filmmaker and even his best work is aging badly. And so on.
Still, if the goal is to "break up the 'old white guys' club," by subjecting them to a purity test of one kind or another, I'd beware. Look more closely at women and writers of color and you'll probably find that they're just as capable of disappointing you as any white man.
112
@Chris. Well said. But I would disagree that Woody Allen's work doesn't hold up well. Like all comedy, it's rooted in a specific cultural time, but Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, etc. are still wonderful, ingenious films.
5
@Chris "Look closely at any human writer and you'll probably find that they are capable of disappointing you."
There, fixed that for you. I am unsure why you dragged race into your comment when those words alone would have sufficed. (:
3
@Melinda "Look closely at any human and you'll probably find that they are capable of disappointing you."
There, fixed that for you. I am unsure why you dragged occupation, or any status of employement, in your comment when those words along woud have sufficed. (:
7
Wasn't there a time when all heroes had "fatal flaws". The point is to surpass those flaws by accomplishing good. Everyone, including women, will eventually be expunged from the artistic world if we set standards humans simply aren't able to perform consistently. Or, have we stopped watching movies in which Joan Crawford performed?
19
@Dennis These are not standards humans aren't able to consistently meet. Somehow, I have made it through life without raping anyone. These are standards that we didn't care if famous men met, and therefore they knew they didn't have to try.
@Dennis You could look at Odysseus as the archetype human. So much of (western) human culture considers him to be the epitome of humanity (I think many of us wish to be him), yet he is highly flawed. Personally, I think his myth endures precisely because he *is* flawed and so we identify with him.
Note, that I don't think these works should be banned, but to say that a sexual abuser is merely "human" or "flawed" minimizes what they did. These people did not meet a moral standard. They didn't try. So, no, they are not paragons of humanity.
If the only options are banning culture and holding these people as heroes, simply because they were good at writing or painting, then I would choose to ban everything. But, I'd rather not make that choice.
1
I am very afraid of the line of thinking of Ms. Lyon. She wants to forbid everyone to study Woody Allen's work, because she thinks that his character in Manhattan is morally dubious. I would very much rather study Woody Allen's work as part of a critical university course than be told by Ms. Lyon as a self-appointed moral arbiter that this work of art is forbidden. Are we returning to the Middle Ages?
284
@Robert Cancelling a class isn't forbidding people from studying Allen's films.
9
@NorCal Girl Burning books doesn't prevent people from reading them either, but it's still intended to.
35
@Robert I agree.
I do like Ms Gowen's approach though - do assign the books, but let the students talk both about the work and about the author.
Ultimately, anything that inspires students to think, even to be passionate about something, is valuable.
4
A provocative discussion as to whether we expect art to have been created by someone virtuous before discussing whether it has an impact.
I do have one qualm with the student who said she was relieved when the teacher sent out a PDF of Diaz's work. That's theft, and no self-dealing reasoning -- for instance that the author was rightly or wrongly convicted of something -- can justify it.
54
@ltglahn Especially when the student could have just borrowed it form the library instead.
4
@ltglahn the professor assigned a short story and an essay published in the New Yorker, sent out as PDFs. This falls under fair use if the short story comprises less than 30% of the total work; the magazine article is fine when used in educational context.
14
@ltglahn It's not theft if a copyrighted work is used without compensation to the author for educational purposes. It's "fair use" explicitly permitted under copyright law.
9
I guess it depends on whether you are considering the work or the author, whether considering the work thereby endorses the life of the author, especially in the case of works of fiction. Put simply, the work is something the author has wrought. It is not, in itself, the author. Granted, mastering this distinction requires a little mental discipline, but is it so very hard?
14
I agree with the sentiment choosing not to teach something is not the same as censoring them. If there are artists to whom we don't want to attend, we are in a position now to use the time tested reasoning: it's not a good fit.
And, really, we needn't make room for pedophiles or abusers. These people are not unmatched. They are matched by several, perhaps even dozens, of artists in their fields. Teach content created by people who aren't demonstrably immoral. There are plenty of great artists to select.
I don't see the value in teaching the controversy, here, either. It might be an interesting conversation, but it isn't important unless you expect your students to behave unethically, immorally, or unlawfully and you want them to understand how those deeds might affect their reputation.
5
If you build up an icon, you must tear down a facade. It may be time to quit the cycle of making someone the all time greatest, then destroying them once their human failings become known.
If works by an abuser are assigned, it might be best to explore what creates an abuser, what environment hides the facts of abuse and protects the abuser, how abusers are sometimes found out, and how to regard someone who is not perfect.
Additionally, anyone triggered by certain works should be given alternatives. I'm reading "Black Indian" by Shonda Buchanan and unfortunately, her family is much like mine and I have to take care of myself by reading slowly and taking long breaks. But it is important to learn the stories of others.
8
You should be warned that using a text to reveal anything about the author, or using the author’s biography to learn much about a text, isn’t very much in fashion. There is a lot more to literary criticism. What you are describing is not a literature course.
2
There are always good reasons to burn books. And it's always those who posture as morally superior who are behind the burning. And there will always be those who try to start a conversation about how it is a morally grey area.
Not.
I went to see Woody Allen's latest film two nights ago. You can't do that in America.
55
@Quelqu'un
"I went to see Woody Allen's latest film two nights ago. You can't do that in America."
I can but I have no desire to; not because of his alleged moral failings but because I do not like his work.
1
I would worry more about missing certain writers, such as Alexie or Diaz, if there were not so many great writers. In place of Alexie, I can read Joy Harjo and in place of Diaz, I can read Rigoberto Gonzalez.
9
We suffer consequence whether political correctness is a toothless mumble of discontent or a biting satire or a flat denial or a threat. Donald Trump is one consequence of political correctness. People can't understand facts much less nuance and complications of history. To them Donald Trump is credible because 'he speaks his mind'. To tell them something is proper or improper is to raise their ire against their own right to choose what to say or read.
Nonetheless, it is proper for an academic to decide to teach or not teach any work for any reason. There is endless material and subject for discussion. It is proper that Woody Allen is schmeck and no longer the auteur of our time. It may not be logical or so easy to codify when something crosses the line. But sometimes Ethics writ large is a matter of the Gut writ small, as in mine regardless of yours.
1
This type of reaction can become a slippery slope very, very fast. Anyone who thinks otherwise only needs to turn to the history of the Puritans in America.
Humans are flawed. No one will ever pass a purity test. If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
Why can I not enjoy works of art or literature that bring me some kind of insight or happiness, despite the misdeeds of the artist's personal life? What is important is that I, and I alone am a good person. Just because I enjoy Kevin Spacey's abilities as an actor does not mean I am condoning his monstrous personal deeds, for which he has been quite severely punished, and rightfully so. That doesn't mean his work as an artist deserves to be scorched from the face of the earth.
John F Kennedy regularly was unfaithful to his wife. Does that mean his leadership through the Cuban Missile Crisis counts for absolutely nothing?
68
"Ten Years Gone" is one of the most beautiful songs ever written despite the fact that Jimmy Page liked underage groupies.
Einstein was mean to his wife. The theories of relativity still apply.
Norman Mailer stabbed his wife. Literature is still the better for his existence.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Great art or scientific advances are not always made by great people.
63
Why is it assumed that a novel must be about an ethnic group to be read by members of that group?
That is narrow-minded. People should read about people unlike themselves in order to learn about the wealth of human experience. For example, we should read Kidnapped, even though we don't live in 18th Century Scotland, and may not have ancestors who lived there. Or Moby Dick, despite not being New Englanders with whaling ancestors. Or Shakespeare, or the Bible.
26
@Jonathan Katz I agree with your basic premise, as it is sound, but you might actually reference some works and authors who are not white men--it will help make your case.
4
@Jonathan Katz Yes absolutely we should read about people different than ourselves, but if you are a white male you do not know what it's like to not ever see literature by people of your background, it's important for all of us to read across cultures and across eras.
4
If these were works worth assigning before the allegations, then they still are. Presumably, the point of teaching them in the first place wasn't to learn about, and judge, the author's character.
What is the alternative? Well, Neil deGrasse Tyson is mentioned, but why? He was investigated and then reinstated in his jobs. Does the existence of allegations compel educators to erase the accused from history?
How about Picasso? Are we going to omit him from art history, because he was a known philanderer, adulterer and probably, by 2019 standards, a creep? If Sherman Alexie is out, then what about Edgar Allen Poe, who married his 13-year-old cousin when he was 26?
It's unfortunate that today's moral panic risks taking a toll on students' cultural literacy.
239
@Patrick I agree and the Neil deGrasse Tyson is especially troubling because he was not accused of rape or violence but of inappropriately looking at someone's tatoos and also taking off his shoes in his own house with female company over.
21
“...canceling books written by people who aren’t great.”
That’s going to leave instructors with awfully short reading lists.
43
This is bizarre. All of us are flawed; every last one of us, many of us quite seriously. If we start basing our acceptance of art, literature and music - not to mention history, mathematics, physics and everything else - on the personal antics of the creators we'll be left with nothing. Should we disavow the Constitution because the founding fathers were slave-owners?
It's nonsense, this stuff.
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Where is the line? Accused but not convicted? Rumored but not proven? Does she said trump he said? Or vice versa? My guess is that if we delve really deeply into the lives of well-known 19th and 20th Century artists (literary and otherwise), we'll find much to reject in their non-artistic lives in a very substantial number of them. Do we call for the removal of Picasso from the curricula and the museum walls? Or can we admire their artistic triumphs while condemning their non-artistic sins?
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Personally, I've decided to judge work on its own merits, rather than its authors' reputations.
I applaud Ms. Meyers' decision.
I'll still listen to Ginger Baker's musical efforts as well.
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@Bill O'Rights I understand this argument but I think in 2019 we can find alternatives to artists who are misogynists or abusers.
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@kim No one is without sin, and you aren't the judge.
If the name on the cover or signature in the corner bothers you, maybe tape it over: it's irrelevant to the quality of an artistic piece.
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@Kim. This is where you are wrong. There is no reason to impose a morality test on artists or other members of the creative class.
I am not suggesting you go on a date with them or invite them to dinner. But it is against every tenet of classically liberal thinking to equate personal behavior with artistic value. Cancel culture will leave us with nothing but New Puritans and newly closed minds who cannot and will not seek to understand anyone or anything but themselves.
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