The impact of non-governmental writers' organisations on freedom of expression

非政府作家组织对言论自由的影响

• 批准号: AH/N008782/1
• 负责人: Rachel Potter
• 金额: $ 99.29万
• 依托单位: University of East Anglia
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2017 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FN008782%2F1
• 关键词: impact; non; governmental; writers; organisations

Literary writers have often seen their poems, plays, essays and novels censored on grounds of offence, blasphemy, libel, political sedition or obscenity and they have also often been eloquent defenders of the right to free expression. This project investigates the intimate relationship between literature and free speech, but focuses on its particular features in twentieth and twenty-first century history. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, insisted on the 'right to freedom and expression...regardless of frontiers'. But writers had, since the 1920s, been claiming that, literature 'knows no frontiers', as the organisation International PEN put it in 1927 and that the dissemination, readership and future significance of literary works could not be owned by nation states. The relationship between literature, censorship and free expression has been of considerable and longstanding interest to lawyers and legal scholars, (Thomas [2007], Dhavan [2008]), literary critics (Pease [2000], McDonald [2009]) and intellectual historians, (Collini [2010], Darnton [2014]. Recent histories of human rights, meanwhile, have analysed the cultural battles over what was 'universal' about rights in the lead up to the UDHR, and its subsequent history (Moyn [2010], Mazower [2009, 2012]). The specific relationship between literature and rights, meanwhile, has also been of considerable interest (Hunt [2007], Slaughter [2007], Anker [2012]). This project engages with this wider body of scholarship, but shifts the terms of the debate. It argues that in order to understand the impact of twentieth and twenty-first century writers on understandings of free expression it is necessary to analyse different sites of cultural exchange, looking beyond governments, law and declarations,. This project argues that the non-governmental writers' organisation has also played a crucial role. It focuses on one writers' organisation, International PEN, but also looks at associated organisations in its three key areas of focus: the UK, South Africa and India. International PEN was founded in London in 1921 but quickly expanded, with centres springing up across Europe and the US in 1922 and 1923, and in China (1924), Canada (1926), South Africa (1927), Argentina (1930), India (1933), Japan and Brazil (1934), amongst many others. Its members have included some of the most prominent writers of the long twentieth century, including Rabindranath Tagore, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Salman Rushdie. Many member writers have had their works censored; and many of them have written influential essays, poems, plays or novels reflecting on the boundaries of free expression. Not only have these writers, and these writers' organisations, engaged intellectually with attacks on free speech; they have also influenced government policies, international charters and legal interpretations through campaigning, educational and translation initiatives. When PEN began in the 1920s its internationalism entailed an expansionist and supposedly apolitical spirit of international 'friendliness' through encounters with writers from other cultures. The organisation's understanding of internationalism, however, soon changed, firstly in its attempt to protect the 'international' rights of exiled and persecuted German and East European writers in the 1930s, and then in the fierce internal disagreements over whether PEN should defend the right to free expression of Nazi and Fascist collaborators such as Ezra Pound and Knut Hamsun. No less controversial was the organisation's securing international financial and legal influence after acquiring consultative status to UNESCO and the UN in the late 1940s and its subsequent role in the cold war when a humanist 'internationalism' became deeply politicised. The project aims to produce a comprehensive account of the organisation in order to understand what international free expression means today.

文学作家经常看到他们的诗歌、戏剧、散文和小说因冒犯、亵渎、诽谤、政治煽动或淫秽而受到审查，他们也经常是言论自由权的雄辩捍卫者。这个项目探讨文学与言论自由之间的密切关系，但重点是它在二十和二十一世纪的历史特点。1948年《世界人权宣言》第19条强调“言论自由权”。无论国界。但是，自20世纪20年代以来，作家们一直声称，文学“没有国界”，正如国际笔会在1927年所说的那样，文学作品的传播，读者和未来意义不能由民族国家拥有。文学、审查制度和言论自由之间的关系长期以来一直受到律师和法律的学者（托马斯[2007]、达文[2008]）、文学评论家（皮斯[2000]、麦克唐纳[2009]）和知识历史学家（科林尼[2010]、达恩顿[2014]）的关注。与此同时，最近的人权史分析了在《世界人权宣言》及其随后的历史中关于什么是“普遍"权利的文化斗争（Moyn [2010]，Mazower [2009，2012]）。同时，文学与权利之间的特定关系也引起了相当大的兴趣（Hunt [2007]，Slaughter [2007]，Anker [2012]）。这个项目与这个更广泛的学术机构合作，但改变了辩论的条件。它认为，为了理解二十和二十一世纪作家对理解言论自由的影响，有必要分析文化交流的不同场所，超越政府，法律和宣言。该项目认为，非政府作家组织也发挥了关键作用。它侧重于一个作家组织，国际笔会，但也着眼于其三个重点领域的相关组织：英国，南非和印度。国际笔会于1921年在伦敦成立，但迅速扩大，1922年和1923年在欧洲和美国以及中国（1924年）、加拿大（1926年）、南非（1927年）、阿根廷（1930年）、印度（1933年）、日本和巴西（1934年）等许多国家建立了中心。它的成员包括了漫长的二十世纪的一些最杰出的作家，包括泰戈尔、托妮莫里森、玛格丽特阿特伍德和萨尔曼拉什迪。许多成员作家的作品受到审查;他们中的许多人写了有影响力的散文、诗歌、戏剧或小说，反映了言论自由的界限。这些作家和作家组织不仅在思想上参与攻击言论自由;他们还通过宣传、教育和翻译活动影响政府政策、国际宪章和法律的解释。当国际笔会在20世纪20年代成立时，它的国际主义通过与来自其他文化的作家的接触，表现出一种扩张主义和所谓的国际“友好”的非政治精神。然而，该组织对国际主义的理解很快就发生了变化，首先是试图保护20世纪30年代流亡和受迫害的德国和东欧作家的“国际”权利，然后是国际笔会内部关于是否应该捍卫纳粹和法西斯合作者（如埃兹拉·磅和克努特·哈姆生）的言论自由权的激烈分歧。同样有争议的是，该组织在20世纪40年代末获得联合国教科文组织和联合国的咨商地位后，获得了国际金融和法律的影响力，以及随后在冷战中的作用，当时人文主义的“国际主义”变得深深政治化。该项目旨在全面介绍该组织，以了解当今国际言论自由的含义。

项目成果

Shadows and Ghosts: The Evolution of the PEN Charter

阴影与幽灵：笔会章程的演变

• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Los Angeles Review of Books
• 作者: Peter D. McDonald

The Form of Ideology and the Ideology of Form - Cold War, Decolonization and Third World Print Cultures

意识形态的形式和形式的意识形态——冷战、非殖民化和第三世界印刷文化

• DOI: 10.11647/obp.0254.10
• 发表时间: 2022
• 作者: Orsini F

"'We all Have a Genuine Fear of Violence': An Interview with Adil Jussawalla"

“‘我们都对暴力有真正的恐惧’：阿迪尔·朱萨瓦拉专访”

• 发表时间: 2018
• 作者: Laetitia Zecchini

Emotions, Mobilisations and South Asian Politics

情绪、动员和南亚政治

• 发表时间: 2019
• 作者: Laetitia Zecchini

Authorship, Activism and Celebrity Art and Action in Global Literature

全球文学中的作者身份、行动主义以及名人艺术和行动

• 发表时间: 2023
• 作者: Peter D. McDonald