Free Speech and Literature, Free Speech as Literature

Scranton, Roy; Scranton, Roy

From the Comstock Act of 1873 to the Trump administration’s proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” issues of free speech, political commitment, and censorship have shaped and motivated the production and reception of American literature in the 20th and 21st centuries. We faceֿ particularly worrying challenges today, as an array of forces–including political polarization, anti-elite populism, extremist rhetoric, institutional change, authoritarian governance, the violation of intellectual property by AI developers, and society-wide developments in media culture–threaten to completely transform both literary production and higher education. The United States is currently experiencing a period of chilled and chilling repression of free speech at colleges and universities. We are seeing state orders limiting teaching certain topics, faculty losing their jobs over what they teach and what they post online, and expanding censorship of museums and libraries. The experiences of multiple voices central to 20th-and-21st Century American Literature—and life—are being silenced. Yet even as new forms of repression emerge from long histories of government and cultural discrimination, new forms of literary and academic culture continue to emerge in response.

Toward that end, this panel seeks to attend to the necessity and/or danger of our field in times of censorship and silencing like the current moment in America and in higher ed. This session features presentations that illuminate contemporary and recent politics of censorship and repression through and in relation to 20th and 21st century American literature.

Andrew Mossin's talk will examine how the current socio-political environment in the second Trump administration raises important questions about our ability to read a poem such as Amiri Baraka’s “Somebody Blew Up America” in 2025, a period marked by ICE round-ups of immigrant populations, the patrolling U.S. cities by military units, and the projected political violences of this president and administration implicated in the “Who and Who and WHO” of our contemporary historical moment and those of prior American regimes. Zay Dale's paper examines Richard Wright’s novel Native Son (1940) and poem “The FB Eye Blues” from the perspective of Black radical aesthetic violence under federal surveillance. In an era defined by repression and oppression, Dale considers how Wright’s novel and poem utilize Black aesthetic violence with and against the law. Loren Glass’s paper, ““For (Young) Adults Only: The Ongoing Battle Over Age-Appropriate Literature,” will examine the ways in which the genre of YA Lit has become the site of the most recent battles over censorship and obscenity.

Each panelist will speak for approximately 15-18 minutes, leaving 15 minutes for unstructured discussion.

This topic builds on existing scholarship by examining the intersection between literature, politics, and cultural production under censorship. The field of 20th and 21st-century American Literature Studies continues to explore how political climates shape literary expression, and this session builds on that intellectual inquiry. This topic contributes to an evolving body of work on how writers, artists, and scholars resist and adapt to shifting ideological pressures and systemic constraints on intellectual and artistic freedom. This topic links historical patterns of suppression with contemporary challenges, and in doing so, it foregrounds literature's enduring role in contesting ideological control.

When talking about “Free Speech And/As Literature,” it is important to hear from a wide range of scholars and researchers. To that end, this panel has scholars from across ranks and scholarly foci. Part of this panel is a current Department Chair of English, an Associate Professor and poet, and an Assistant Professor in African American Literature. Our Associate Professor panelist teaches in the Intellectual Heritage Program at Temple University. Our Assistant Professor teaches in the English and African American studies program at the University of Kansas. And our Department Chair panelist teaches in the English Department with a joint appointment with the Center for the Book at the University of Iowa. Though these panelists vary in rank, their scholarly focus remains in the 20th and 21st centuries. These panelists have published in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals and book presses, and as such, their diverse voices would be immensely impactful for this panel.

Free Speech and Literature, Free Speech as Literature: Calls for Papers