released 7/16/2021
There was a time (and not so long ago) when cultural conservatives were advocates of limits on free expression in public, and transgressive radicals were angry crusaders demanding their rights to free speech. In recent years, the roles seem to have been reversed, raising questions about whether the term “free speech” is finally an empty abstraction. Ken Myers asks about the utility of the idea while introducing two interviews from 1996. First, Rochelle Gurstein discusses her book The Repeal of Reticence: A History of America’s Cultural and Legal Struggles over Free Speech, Obscenity; Sexual Liberation, and Modern Art. Then Myers talks with literary critic Roger Shattuck about Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography, a book which asked the question: Are there some things we shouldn’t know?
37 minutes
PREVIEW