Spring Arts and Culture Festival 2025 - Risk

Brave New World

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

This is considered to be a risky reading because of the materials discussion of rape, drug use, its use of profanity. It has 68 sections that have been flagged as explicit.

I, Rigoberta Menchu : an Indian woman in Guatemala

The book is a testimony of the cruelty and dehumanization that powerful groups in a society inflicted on others based on race, gender, and economic status. The book describes in great detail violent scenes due to discrimination, racism, and politics.

Rear Window

Min Ko Naing is a writer from Myanmar who writes about freedom and the struggle against the military government. His work is risky because it talks about important issues like human rights and freedom of speech, which are dangerous to talk about in my country, Myanmar. Many of his books have been banned in our country. He has also been arrested for speaking out. Sharing his work in a public space like a library is risky because it talks about sensitive topics that some governments may not allow. However, his work is important because it shows the power of writing to challenge injustice.

Lover of Linker De Pa

“Lover of Linker De Pa” by Chit Oo Nyo is not officially banned, but it can be considered a risky read because it challenges traditional beliefs.

Why is it risky?

1. Social and Cultural Criticism – The novel questions Myanmar’s rigid social customs, particularly in marriage and relationships. It portrays love and personal freedom in ways that may go against traditional values.

2. Religious Sensitivity – It touches on Buddhist beliefs and practices, making some readers uncomfortable. Any book discussing religion critically can be controversial in Myanmar.

How is it risky?

• Conservative readers may find the themes too bold, believing it promotes ideas that weaken traditional family and cultural values.

• Religious figures might see it as disrespectful if they think it questions established Buddhist practices.

To Kill a Mockingbird

"To Kill a Mockingbird" became a dangerous book for many reasons. First, the content of the book directly deals with the issue of racism. The novel was published in 1960 - a time when racism in America was still very fierce. Second, the reason why this famous novel was criticized by a group of readers was because it dared to mention the issue of sexual violence. After all, this is a sensitive issue. One reason that cannot be ignored that makes "To Kill a Mockingbird" controversial is because of its strong, direct language.

The Breakaways

This graphic novel tells the story of a girls' soccer team. School districts have banned it for its depiction of trans kids, sexual content, and discussion of "Black Lives Matter." It was part of nine book bans in the 2021-2022 school year.

The Catcher in the Rye

The book is considered a frequently challenged book and is banned in some school districts due to its content, which includes profanity, sexual references, and themes of rebellion,

The Handmaid's Tale

1. It challenges society and the way women are treated
2. sexual content, discussions of feminism and religious extremism, profanity

This Book is Gay

It talks about sexual orientation and LGBTQ

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

Due to unflinching descriptions of slavery.

Hunting Adaline

It is a dark romance book about a woman who gets kidnapped and put into sex trafficking and for the first half of the book is raped daily but in the second half of the book, she escaped and was rescued by her stalker/lover and then kills the people that tortured her for months.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a book I will be reading. I was looking at the website my teacher sent the class of books that where banned. It was on the list of top 10 most challenged books of 2023 and it was tied at number 7. This is why the book was banned number of challenges: 56 challenged for: claimed to be sexually explicit, profanity.

Mockingjay

The Hunger games is a risky book due to the violence throughout the book.

Nothing Personal

James Baldwin as a gay Black man living in the middle of the twentieth century unapologetically asserted space for himself in a world foreclosed to him. His writing beams with prophecy (of a former child preacher) and the intimacy of cocktails (that he drank with many of the great minds of his time), affirms the danger of evaporating national myths and future redemption, informs us of the details of worlds that we never really knew, and makes us feel the struggles of deprivation borne out in class and race. In a time of great upheaval at the height of the civil rights movement, he criticized the domestication of Black thought and frequent elitism of Black groups and intellectuals (even as he was deeply intertwined with the best groups and minds of his generation, like King, Shabbaz, and Evers). He critiqued the Obama president and its tireless moderations nearly 50 years before it existed. To read Baldwin is to be shook by prophecy, from which you may never recover.

Trans Historical: Gender Plurality Before the Modern

"Trans Historical: Gender Plurality Before the Modern" is risky because it contains essays that detail historical examples of transgender people and gender plurality before the 20th century, challenging preconceived notions that such concepts came about only recently.

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is controversial for myriad things, ranging from ""anti-Christian"" rhetoric to profanity and the use of drugs and mentions of sex on the surface. The underlying themes, ones that frighten the dismantlement of powerful regimes--book banning, control of knowledge and perspective, imposing widespread censorship, and fascism--all resonate with the current state of the world, and in an effort to keep people ignorant, those in power want to silence books that have the potential to enlighten people to this reality.

Can the Monster Speak?

Presciado dangerously bridges the gap between natural science, social science, and humanities in an argument for accepting the knowledge and technology of the body as a commons; and thus opens space for people previously marginalized to assert their agency in a world that does not want them.
 

On Beyond Zebra

The book contains racist stereotypes, which is not acceptable for a kid's book.

The Giver

1. The Giver hits topics that are considered inappropriate for the audience that is typically reading it so some saw fit to shield children away from it.
2. It includes references to sex, violent imagery, and a scene where a newborn infant is euthanized.
3. The Giver is challenged because of its themes of suicide, euthanasia, and sexuality.

The House on Mango Street

1. This is considered a risky read because of the themes of sexuality and racism.
2. Has been challenged and/or banned for dealing with the themes of racism, sexuality, poverty, domestic violence, and sexual abuse, according to the Central Arkansas Library System and The Latin Times.

If I Ran the Zoo

It was banned due to controversy surrounding racist imagines within the book.

Song of Myself

When Walt Whitman published "Song of Myself" in 1855, he shocked readers by breaking every convention of poetry and proper society. His work celebrated human diversity, physical existence, and radical self-trust at a time when American society was expanding rapidly, in population and across the continent. In sections 16 and 20, we see why his work remains provocative. Section 16 presents a bold vision of human diversity, with Whitman claiming to contain every kind of person "of every hue and caste"—from" prisoners to priests, farmers to lawyers. Then in Section 20, after acknowledging all perspectives, he makes his most radical claim: that self-trust and personal experience outweigh external authority. "I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones," he declares, suggesting that true wisdom comes from embracing rather than denying our own nature. Even today, this combination of radical inclusivity and fierce self-trust challenges readers to question conventional wisdom and find truth in their own experience

Tricks

This book contains explicit depictions of sex including situations involving coercion as well as profanity and drug abuse.

The Beloved: Reflections on the Path of the Heart

Kahlil Gibran was controversial because his ideas about spirituality and religion were considered anti-modern and sentimental. He offered a universal spiritualism that was not moralistic and did not adhere to orthodox religion. Political leaders in several countries considered Gibran's ideas to be poisonous to young people.

On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres

This book by Nicolaus Copernicus was controversial because it proposed a heliocentric model of the universe, placing the Sun at the center and the Earth in orbit around it. This directly contradicted the widely accepted geocentric model supported by the Church at the time that placed the Earth at the center of the universe. Copernicus waited almost 30 years from the time he was effectively finished writing the book and published it only shortly before his death because he was concerned about the controversy it would cause.

The Kite Runner

It is risky righting because in one of the chapters one of the littles boys gets sexually assaulted . It also shows a non normal family .

Brave Two Zero

Bravo Two Zero was banned by the UK government upon its initial release. The novel tells the true story of a British military unit abandoned and fighting to survive behind enemy lines. It has since been openly released and made into a feature film. The book is controversial for the negative depiction of the UK governments choices and inspired many other military memoir styled books.

Stillwater

Because it has foul language, science, and violent imagery.

Howl and Other Poems

censorship trial in 1950s :)

Walden, or Life in the Woods

Thoreau was the great American voice of civil disobedience, conscientious objection, direct action, environmentalism, and simple living. His writings were a direct assault on the shallowness, materialism, and solipsism of modern life. He has inspired generations on generations to think independently and remain skeptical of received wisdom.

Girl

It shows all expectations society has on women. It highlights many negative things that are said to young women and girls for many years, trying to shape them into something that is impossible to achieve. While expressing negative names and thoughts about them without even giving them a chance.

Carry On

This book involves magic and has LGBTQ relationships/themes.

Cry, The Beloved Country

This is a fictional novel that follows the narrative of a Black man's perspective on life and religion in a White world as the characters face bigotry and racial injustice. Set in South Africa, a central character of the book named Stephen Kumalo finds himself on an expedition through rural Southern Africa and the city of Johannesburg as he searches for his son. This novel is not only confrontational due to the compelling content, but because of the fact that the writer was a white man using Eurocentric language to depict the journey and societal struggle of the Black experience.

The Lorax

The Lorax was banned in some schools because of complaints that it was negative portrayal of the logging industry and for “pushing an environmentalist agenda on to young minds”.

The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar is often challenged due to its topics of mental illness, gender equality, and graphic sexual content.

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment has been banned on occasion due to its subject matter including murder and psychological disturbance, as well as its political and religious themes. Dostoyevsky is a risky writer because he was arrested for belonging to a literary circle known as Petrashevsky Circle that discussed banned books critical of The Russian Empire. He also had a gambling addiction that got him and his family into debt several times. Dostoyevsky did have a strong religious standpoint, deeming Russian Orthodoxy to be the ideal form of Christianity. It was hard to place him politically because he was a Christian, a pacifist, and a traditionalist all in one which put his political standpoint all over the place.

As I Lay Dying

It's about women and choice, death, profanity...

Beowulf

Headley rewrote the classic tale of Beowulf in "bro speak." It is macho and masculine to an ironic degree. Throwing in words like "bro" and "my dude" adds an almost "Bill and Ted" vibe to a story that can often feel tedious and boring to many high school and college students. Most are at least somewhat familiar with the story and Headley's retelling keeps things fresh and interesting. I personally have always found it very cool that a female author understands the "bro" ways so well. Beer, fist fights, women, boasting - it's all there. Also, she wrote it while she was pregnant which is badass. The story follows the same trajectory, with warriors and halls and monsters, but the wording and stanza use adds a lot of style points. Her experience watching stupid men do stupid men things also shows, as she often unironically represents the predictability and surface level desires that so many men have shown the world over since the dawn of time. Her words utilize bravado and alliteration, flowing in the same way an old bard may perform a sonnet. A woman with the guts to jump into a "man's tale," and rewrite it in such a way that has pissed off men and women alike, is a risky writer, indeed.

1984

George Orwell strongly opposed totalitarianism and communism, and his writing portrays these views. 1984 is often described as a cautionary tale against totalitarianism. Because his writing directly challenged various powers, it was severely contested. It was banned in the Soviet Union, and it is unclear (to me) if it was/is "soft banned" in Vietnam. His work was also banned in some small public schools in the United States due to sexual content. It is ironic, but also important that the actual message of Orwell's content is not lost especially now more than ever.

Educated

Tara Westover's memoir Educated demonstrates the risks that she took to pursue a college education, despite opposition from her father and a lack of any prior formal education. In the memoir, Westover also both reflects on telling and continues tell herself and others the painful truth about her upbringing and family dynamic, knowing as she does so that she risks criticism and the loss of relationships that she values.

State of Exception

An iconoclast of modern political philosophy, Giorgio Agamben's work in the political sphere focuses on the relationship between subject and sovereign, law and the violence that upholds law, and life and the exception of life. Agamben, in his seminal 1995 book Homo Sacer, asserts that the end-state of Western democracy is necessarily totalitarianism, and that the concentration camp is the nomos of the future. Engaging with the work of prior theorists from Michel Foucault to Carl Schmitt, Agamben argues that the original purpose and terminal trajectory of law is an increasingly narrow conception of human life worth living, achieved through the production of bare life stripped of all political agency or social consequence, and the suspension of law that exempts that life from the aegis of sovereign protection and confines them to different forms of the camp—or, the state of exception. In his 2005 book of the same name, and continuation of his work in Homo Sacer, Agamben attacks the foundations of Western democracy, arguing that the state of exception has become the normal and permanent function of government, citing examples from the normalization of surveillance of the citizenry to the permanent detention of "unlawful enemy combatants" in pursuit of an endless War on Terror. Original and provocative while synthesizing a range of contrasting voices, Agamben's ideas have sparked an enormous volume of debate and critique, and influenced the work of contemporary theorists from Judith Butler to Byung-Chul Han.

Blood Meridian

The very writing of Blood Meridian itself is risky, not in the way that Paradise Lost or the Divine Comedy were written while their respective writers being on the run from the government, nor to the way Moliere had to revise and edit his work until the church allowed his plays to run, but rather the way he writes is itself risky. McCarthy has a very stripped style of writing. Colons are about the most complicated mark of punctuation in his novels, refusing to use the more common style of writing, even refusing quotation marks, it's your job to figure out who's talking. But the content in his books is far more risky than any of his grammatical choices. Nihilism. The belief in nothing paves way for the worst in humanity. Death, gore, rape, pedophilia, necrophilia, corruption, and many other horrible ideas can all be found in his novels. Now most writers would write these topics in a way that comes off as more comical than horrifying, in a sort of edgy darkness commonly found in Wattpad fanfics. However, McCarthy’s flowery sentences and word choice gives the horror found in his novels a sort of twisted gravitas. A horrific beauty that I’ve never seen recreated in any other novel or by any other author. Say what you will about McCarthy’s personal life, but you cannot deny his skill and risk in his writing.

Treatise on Tolerance or On Universal Tolerance

Voltaire wrote this book after the unjust execution of French Protestant Jean Calas in 1762. Accused of killing his son to avoid his conversion to Catholicism, Jean Calas never confessed, and the sparse evidence lacked credibility. Regardless, he was sentenced to death by local magistrates, the very same zealous Catholics responsible for inciting the public’s anger. Voltaire wrote to exonerate Calas and place a spotlight on religious prejudice and fanaticism. Through a logical perspective, this work demonstrates the flaws in certain religious intolerant thinking, ideologies, and reasonings. As were almost all of Voltaire’s works, this was risky to write because the main religion he criticized had just killed a man for lesser reasons. But that was the whole point.

Amongst his repertoire of titles, Voltaire is most recognized as a French Enlightenment philosopher and candid advocate of civil liberties. He influenced the fundamental values of democracy for and of the people to be led with reason, equality, and justice. Most importantly, the unshakable belief in freedom of speech. He was a prolific and diverse writer, who used his sharp wit and intelligence to satirize intolerance and unchecked powers of authority. His harsh criticism of Christianity often resulted in strict censorship and exile at best. Threats of death followed him throughout his life. Still, he wrote to invoke a change in our world. Thus, Voltaire became a paragon of risky writers.

When I Hit You

When I Hit You by Meera Kandasamy is a semi-autobiographical novel based on the author's personal experiences in an abusive marriage. It is a risky read for several reasons. It challenges the romanticized notion of marriage, particularly the belief that a leftist progressive man can't be an abusive partner. The story critiques leftist hypocrisy by showcasing how her husband, despite being a leftist progressive who advocates for social justice, perpetuates abuse in their home. The author emphasizes the societal pressure faced by Indian women subjected to domestic violence: they are often urged to "adjust" and stay in abusive relationships.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

I consider Jonathan Edwards a risky writer, especially with his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of and Angry God". This sermon was delivered during the Great Awakening in 1741. His writing was controversial because of its intense, fear driven imagery and unapologetic portrayal of God's wrath. Edwards used very vivid metaphors, such as sinners being like spiders dangling over the flames of hell, to stir an emotional response from his listeners. This unsettling image of eternal damnation was jarring in a time when more moderate forms of preaching were popular. 
What made Edwards writings particularly risky was his heavy emphasis on judgement and the idea that people were completely at the mercy of God. He had a Calvinist theology of predestination, which suggested only a selected few would be saved. This idea clashed with a lot of the thinking during the Enlightenment Era. Edwards approach was not only emotionally intense, but it challenged lots of the theological views of the time, making his sermon both proactive and polarizing.
While his writing did spark intense emotional reactions, it also drew criticism from those who found his focus on wrath and fear to be too harsh. Jonathan Edward's willingness to preach such a vivid message of damnation in such an outspoken way made his work a risky writing, therefore, making him a risky writer.