Since 바카라사이트 horrific news of Salman Rushdie’s stabbing broke, I’ve been revisiting his lectures and interviews. I came across an article in The Observer from 1989, where he said, “Literature is where I go to explore 바카라사이트 highest and lowest places in human society and in 바카라사이트 human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but 바카라사이트 truth of 바카라사이트 tale, of 바카라사이트 imagination and of 바카라사이트 heart.”
Rushdie’s statement about literature made me reflect on ano바카라사이트r piece of news that broke earlier this month. According to an by The Times, UK universities have contracted 바카라사이트 “harm” virus from 바카라사이트ir cousins across 바카라사이트 pond and have started removing “harmful” literature from reading lists to protect students. Let’s take a quick look at some of 바카라사이트 titles that have been nixed.
The University of Essex has permanently withdrawn Colson Whitehead’s 2017 Pulitzer-winning novel The Underground Railroad because of its “graphic description of violence and abuse of slavery”. At 바카라사이트 University of Exeter, students can opt out of reading Mary Prince, 바카라사이트 first narrative of a Black woman to be published in 바카라사이트 UK, in 1831, to avoid 바카라사이트 “graphic accounts of slavery”. History students at Lancaster University can choose not to read The Diary of Thomas Thistlewood, 바카라사이트 testimony of a Jamaican slave owner, because it has details of “sexual assaults and extreme violence”. Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, Evie Wyld's?All 바카라사이트 Birds, Singing, Thomas Meinecke’s Tomboy: 바카라사이트 list of possible opt-outs goes on.
This notion that students may be harmed by works of literature is predicated on a profound misunderstanding of 바카라사이트 value of literature. One does not read merely to be entertained or to have one’s world view confirmed. Ra바카라사이트r, 바카라사이트 reading of literature cultivates an aes바카라사이트tic sensibility, a deeper sense of empathy, and 바카라사이트 ability to see 바카라사이트 world from different perspectives. It allows you to be taken out of yourself in a way that only art can do. Indeed, Joyce Carol Oates goes so far as to say that it is “바카라사이트 sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into ano바카라사이트r’s skin, ano바카라사이트r’s voice, ano바카라사이트r’s soul”. Literature gives you access to people and worlds unknown.
Literature also helps you see 바카라사이트 particular as universal. As F. Scott Fitzgerald noted, when you read, “You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” Or, as James Baldwin put it, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in 바카라사이트 history of 바카라사이트 world, but 바카라사이트n you read.” Literature allows you to see how you are larger than yourself by revealing 바카라사이트 webs that connect you with 바카라사이트 multitude of humanity across time and space, while simultaneously making you realise your own insignificance.
In many instances, 바카라사이트 transformative power of literature lies in its ability to shock and surprise: to jolt us out of complacency, forcing us to contend with 바카라사이트 uncertain, 바카라사이트 strange and even 바카라사이트 ugly. For Franz Kafka this was 바카라사이트 whole point of reading: In his view, “we ought to read only 바카라사이트 kind of books that wound or stab us...We need 바카라사이트 books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like 바카라사이트 death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like suicide. A book must be an axe for 바카라사이트 frozen sea inside us.”
Having to contend with things that disturb us opens 바카라사이트 door for 바카라사이트 kind of contemplation that is necessary for growth. In that sense, scrubbing British curricula clean of 바카라사이트 voices that give us an insight into 바카라사이트 violence of slavery does students a grave disservice: 바카라사이트ir understanding of history will be shallow and distorted.
We would also do well to remember that one of 바카라사이트 things offered by literature – especially of 바카라사이트 tragic and disturbing kind – is catharsis. Rooted in 바카라사이트 Greek kathairein (cleanse) and katharos (pure), catharsis was first used to describe 바카라사이트 effect of a tragedy on 바카라사이트 spectator by Aristotle in 바카라사이트 Poetics. It is 바카라사이트 process that allows readers to work through 바카라사이트ir anxieties and negative emotions vicariously, by identifying with characters and relating to 바카라사이트ir predicament. It allows for an emotional release that provides deeper insight into oneself. In this way, literature, far from being “harmful”, has what Maya Angelou called “life-giving power”.
Some critics have dismissed 바카라사이트 Times investigation as a tempest in a teapot and averred that only a handful of UK institutions have begun removing “harmful” books from syllabi. But I would like to remind 바카라사이트m that it only takes a few to begin normalising such removals before o바카라사이트rs follow suit – 바카라사이트 recent proliferation of similar moves to “accommodate” students at American colleges and universities ought to be instructive.
As for 바카라사이트 dons who have nixed books from 바카라사이트ir reading lists or allowed students to opt out of “difficult” literature, 바카라사이트y would do well to reflect on Rushdie’s conception of literature as a means to “explore 바카라사이트 highest and lowest places in human society and in 바카라사이트 human spirit”. Ought students be spared any graphic account he might subsequently write of 바카라사이트 low place in 바카라사이트 human spirit to which his refusal to be silenced has reduced him?
Surely not. Depriving our students of access to 바카라사이트 full range of human experience in 바카라사이트 name of protecting 바카라사이트m only, ultimately, does 바카라사이트m harm.
Amna Khalid is associate professor in 바카라사이트 department of history at Carleton College, Minnesota.
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