Recently, a Parisian court assented to hear the case of a French primary school teacher who is suing Facebook after his account was suspended in 2011 for posting an image of Gustave Courbet’s notorious painting L’Origine du monde, which shows…
Author: Maren Williams
Four Decades Later, Anarchist Cookbook Still Haunts Author
In a recent article for Harper’s Magazine, Gabriel Thompson took an in-depth look at the fascinating history of one of the most controversial books in recent memory: The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell. The 1971 how-to manual for everything from…
See the Early Days of CBLDF in Comic Book People 2
Hot on the heels of last year’s Comic Book People: Photographs from the 1970s and 1980s, industry mainstay and Eisner Award administrator Jackie Estrada is gearing up for Comic Book People 2: Photographs from the 1990s — but she needs…
Mosul Book Burning Recalls Cultural Genocides of Centuries Past
In light of the devastating news last week that Islamic State extremists apparently burned part or all of the public library collection in the Iraqi city of Mosul, CBLDF general counsel Robert Corn-Revere contributed a comprehensive overview of book burnings…
Kansas Senate Passes Bill That Could Jail Teachers for Controversial Material
The Kansas Senate last week passed a bill that could send teachers to jail if they expose students to material deemed “harmful to minors.” While proponents say the intention is to shield children from pornography, critics fear that the overbroad…
Gilbert Hernandez’s Palomar Challenged in New Mexico High School
The critically acclaimed comic collection Palomar by Gilbert Hernandez is being called “child porn” by the mother of a high school student in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, and the book may have already been removed from a library collection in…
Iranian Cartoonist’s Memoir Recounts Detention and Exile
In 2006, Iranian cartoonist Mana Neyestani was arrested and imprisoned for three months for drawing a children’s cartoon. In his memoir An Iranian Metamorphosis, he tells the surreal tale of his detention and eventual exile from his native country —…
Happy Freedom to Read Week, Canada!
This week our neighbors to the north are celebrating Freedom to Read Week! Much like Banned Books Week in the U.S., this is “an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which…
EXCLUSIVE: CBLDF Talks to Persepolis Sleuth Jarrett Dapier!
Following the recent revelation of new details regarding the Chicago Public Schools’ 2013 classroom ban of Persepolis, CBLDF got in touch with Library & Information Science graduate student Jarrett Dapier, who used the Freedom of Information Act to secure the…
In Memoriam: Free Speech Lawyer Herald Price Fahringer
Free speech lost a prime defender recently with the death of Herald Price Fahringer, the lawyer who over a more than 50-year career represented clients such as Larry Flynt and Screw magazine’s Al Goldstein. While abstaining from most vice himself,…