Sightings Articles

burning books

political correctness | political partisanship | censorship

Fahrenheit 451 Redux: Free Thinking in the Present?

Enough with champions of the right and the left, the book burners and those of cancel culture: the present moment calls for a few more firemen like Ray Bradbury....

November 18, 2021

blasphemy | censorship | Doniger | Hinduism | India

Looking Back on My Run-in with Censorship in India

Ed. Note: The author has discussed other aspects of the story of her publishing experiences in India in The New York Review of Books (“India: Censorship by the Batra Brigade,” May 8, 2014); Sightings (“Prelude to Censorship: The Toleration of Blasphe...

October 1, 2018

freedom of expression | Oliver Wendell Holmes | censorship | Voltaire | Louis Brandeis | blasphemy | Prophet Mohammad | Charlie Hebdo | Thomas Aquinas | Puritans | American Revolution | Enlightenment | Second Great Awakening | John Adams | Thomas Jefferson | US Supreme Court | Zineb El Rhazoui

"Charlie Hebdo's" Haunting Question: Should We Have the Right To Blaspheme?

Geoffrey Stone's comments were first delivered in early March when he introduced a University of Chicago event featuring Charlie Hebdo journalist, Zineb El Rhazoui....

April 23, 2015

Doniger | India | free speech | Hinduism | #JeSuisCharlie | censorship | blasphemy | British colonization | Bhagavad Gita | Krishna | Brahmo Samaj | Arya Samaj | Sanatana Dharma | Sanskritization | Indian Penal Code | Hindu Nationalism | Hindutva

#JeSuisCharlie: Blasphemy in Hinduism and Censorship in India

Free speech, under attack in France, is also contested in India, where violence ignited by videos or messages deemed “blasphemous” or “insulting” by orthodox Hindus has long been a reality. In 2014 alone, eighty-five religion-related attacks on the m...

January 22, 2015