Censorship in Canadian Literature

Censorship has been amply studied in the context of European and American literatures but largely ignored in Canadian literary studies. In Censorship in Canadian Literature Mark Cohen provides the first analysis of censorship of and in English Canadian literature. He examines the views of five Canadian writers who, having been subjected to censorship attacks, grappled with the philosophical implications of censorship. Cohen critiques Timothy Findley's broad anti-censorship position; he traces Margaret Atwood's evolution from implicit support for the censorship of pornography in Bodily Harm to the rejection of censorship in The Handmaid's Tale; and he provides the first detailed study of the draft of Margaret Laurence's unfinished novel, showing the degree to which her final silence was a result of her censorship ordeal. Finally, an analysis of the writing of Beatrice Culleton and Marlene Nourbese Philip shows how different kinds of socio-cultural censorship - from gate-keepers to self-censorship - silence Native and black Canadian voices. Cohen's re-definition of censorship as essentially a practice of judgment takes us beyond the traditional Enlightenment delineation of censorship as an oppressive government practice and the consequent neutralist liberal condemnation of censorship on principle. Since judgment is enmeshed in the fabric of human endeavour, censorship is inevitable; since censorship is inevitable, Cohen concludes, debate over whether censorship itself is desirable should give way to a search for censorship practices that are more just. Censorship in Canadian Literature is an essential text for scholars of Canadian literature as well as for anyone concerned with contemporary debates about censorship and civil rights.