Recently, a lot of books have been making it onto the infamous banned books list in America, due to containing such themes as "strong female leader" in the case of Wizard of Oz, "racism", especially with children's books that tend to point to the systemic nature of racism in America, and of course, "sexuality and gender" that basically gets slapped on anything that even remotely hints at an LGBTQ relationship or gender expression outside of the cisgender spectrum. Most of these entries to the ever-growing ban list seem to be coming from conservative areas. It might be good to take a small sample of the banned book list from the past 2 years or so and see how it would compare to, say a European banned books list, if the idea of a banned books list isn't something that is wholly limited to America in the first place, and see if there are any overlapping topics between the lists to see what trends might exist cross-culturally.
If this cross-examination is not possible, the topic taker could instead talk about whether or not book bans should exist, and the reasons why they do, and could choose to take a few selections from the banned books list and make an argument as to whether or not the themes presented in the literature truly merit a spot on a banned books list.
I think for this to be good analysis of cultural differences it should look at time frames as well. 90s America vs 90s China for example. Or a myriad of differing ideologies within the nations and have they remained the same or evolved as times have changed. – Sunni Ago9 months ago
I think this is a very interesting topic! I think it would be fascinating to research if book bans come from liberals as well. The comparison could be what each side of the spectrum is trying to ban. Also, I think your second paragraph could be an interesting focus. – shoafhannah9 months ago