Middle East studies in the News

Yale Press Sides With Religious Fanatics Over Own Author

by Hamilton Nolan
Gawker
August 13, 2009

http://gawker.com/5336561/yale-press-sides-with-religious-fanatics-over-own-author

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/7999

Yale University Press is publishing a book about the Danish Muhammad cartoon controversy of 2005. But Yale will not publishany images of the cartoons, or Muhammad, because Yale University Press is run by freedom-disregarding accommodationist pussies.

To reiterate: this book, entitled The Cartoons That Shook the World, is about thiscartoon controversy. But Yale told the author that it was banning not only images of the cartoons themselves, but also three other classical representations of Muhammad which were to be included. This is their reasoning, according to the NYT:

John Donatich, the director of Yale University Press, said by telephone that the decision was difficult, but the recommendation to withdraw the images, including the historical ones of Muhammad, was "overwhelming and unanimous." The cartoons are freely available on the Internet and can be accurately described in words, Mr. Donatich said, so reprinting them could be interpreted easily as gratuitous.

So now books are no longer including any content that is "freely available on the Internet?" Time to shut down the publishing industry. The images are offensive to some people. And? Books are published about Nazis, and lynchings, and genocide, and include copious images of awful events. That is called "communicating information," and it's what books do.

May we repeat: This book is *about* these cartoons. But Yale University Press will not print the cartoon, because religious fanatics once went crazy over them.

Donatich says he fears "blood on my hands" if he publishes them. First, this is a preposterous fear, as many other experts point out in the story—the images have been shown everywhere by now. Second, John Donatich, you have zero respect for academic freedom. You live in fear of imaginary bogeymen. You value the idea of the possibility of upsetting religious zealots more highly than you value your own author's right to publish freely. Why don't you just resign?

[Or go to work for a newspaper? The NYT didn't publish the cartoon either.]

Note: Articles listed under "Middle East studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.

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