Biblioclasm: the Assault on Ideas from Homer to Harry Potter explores the persistent threat of the suppression of ideas. The exhibition opens in Doheny Library on September 26, 2008. In addition, we have been developing online resources that dramatize the impact of book burnings and censorship on the history of ideas.
I created this word cloud from James Joyce's Ulysses, which was banned in the United States from 1921 until 1933. Click on the cloud to see a larger version, showing the words and ideas that were denied to American readers while censors interpreted Joyce's modernist novel as an obtuse form of pornography. Thanks to Project Gutenberg and wordle.net for their assistance.