LitHouse podcast7 Jan 2024

Censorship in East and West. Ian Buruma and Helge Jordheim

Freedom of expression is never absolute, but subject to laws and social conventions. Threats to freedom of thought and speech can come directly from authoritarian states or religious institutions. But they can also be self-inflicted, in the form of self-censorship. Both forms of censorship exist in democracies as well as dictatorship, and often overlap.

Throughout history, authors in particular have been made the object of the limitations set by powerful institutions, be it by explicit decree or through the trepidations felt at writing challenging or shocking literature.

Few know this landscape better than historian, author and critic Ian Buruma. He has written a host of books on East Asian (especially Chinese and Japanese) culture and history, the West and Islam, and European history, including this year’s The Collaborators. Buruma is also highly respected columnist and critic for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, the latter of which he also served as editor-in-chief.

This evening, Buruma will give an introductory lecture on how censorship has shaped culture and the arts in both Eastern and Western countries, before being interviewed by author and professor of cultural history at the University of Oslo, Helge Jordheim. He will join Buruma on stage for a conversation on how threats to expression have changed over time, and the challenges that writers face today.

This event marks the beginning of The House of Literature’s series on “Forbidden books”, which sheds light on the ways in which literature is made forbidden, censored, or otherwise suppressed, historically and today.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(138)

Andrey Kurkov: Ukraine — Memories for the future

The Wergeland Lecture 2026Andrey Kurkov is one of Ukraine’s most central cultural and literary ambassadors. With titles such as Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees, he has gained readers across the wo...

15 Mai 54min

Feminism in Ukrainian: Oksana Zabuzhko and Lotta Elstad

Oksana Zabuzhko is one of the central writers of Ukraine’s post-Soviet generation. In 1996, she caused great controversy with her debut novel, Field Work in Ukrainian Sex, in which she challenged the ...

4 Mai 1h 1min

The Tsar Dynasty and the Mad Monk: Anthony Beevor and Erika Fatland

Few historians can match the position of British Anthony Beevor. With his 13 historical book son recent European history, he has become one of the most respected and read writers of history. Especiall...

27 Apr 1h 6min

A Love Story: Siri Hustvedt and Marte Spurkland

After 43 years together, author Siri Hustvedt loses her husband, the author Paul Auster, to an aggressive form of cancer. Now there is only Siri left, in a time in which memories, smells and words fro...

13 Apr 1h 2min

A Country Falling Apart: Siri Hustvedt and Karin Haugen

No, reading novels is not a solution to our political miseries. For that organization, active resistance, and harder rhetoric is required. But we need stories.Author Siri Hustvedt said these words dur...

13 Apr 1h 6min

A Women's History. Annabelle Hirsch and Susanne Kaluza

In A History of Women in 101 Objects, author Annabelle Hirsch shows us how the things around us aren’t just objects, but testimonies to a common cultural history and set of values. Hirsch shows how so...

2 Mar 1h

A Secret Family History: Lea Ypi

Albanian Lea Ypi has a talent for combining the personal and the political in history, exploring how we are all shaped by the societies and ideologies surrounding us. In her memoir Free. A Child and a...

23 Feb 57min

Reading the Vikings. Eleanor Barraclough and Tore Skeie

The history of the Vikings is usually told from the top down, through powerful characters such as chiefs, commanders and royalty, with raids, looting and war at the centre of the narrative. But what a...

12 Jan 48min