This week (September 25-October 1, 2016) is banned books week. Over on the Forbes Blog, I discuss the import of celebrating the freedom to read any book that we want. This is despite the fact that written works continue to be censored and removed from public libraries even today. I discuss just a few of the works that were burned, censored, or banned completely in antiquity and the middle ages, and mention a new book I am reading, Dirk Rohmann’s Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity : Studies in Text Transmission. Head on over to the ALA’s list of censored texts and pick a banned book to read this week!
Side note: The Sibyl of Cumae was clearly extremely buff to the mind of Michelangelo (see image above), but I like to think it is from lifting all those books all the time. #libraryworkouts
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Published by sarahemilybond
I am an Associate Professor in the Classics Department at the University of Iowa. I am interested in Roman, late antique, and early medieval history, archaeology, topography and GIS, Digital Humanities, and the role of Classics in pop culture. I obtained a BA in Classics and History with a minor in Classical Archaeology from the University of Virginia (2005). My PhD is in Ancient History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2011). My book, Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professionals in the Roman Mediterranean, is out now from University of Michigan Press (Fall, 2016) and looks at the lives of marginalized tradesmen like gravediggers and tanners. Follow me on Twitter @SarahEBond, read my Blog, or email me at sarah-bond@uiowa.edu.
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