This public dialogue series, supported by the Censorship, Information Control, and Information Revolutions from Printing Press to Internet research project at the Neubauer Collegium, brought together scholars of print revolutions past and present with practitioners working on the frontiers of today’s information revolution. These events were not formal panels with presented papers, but freeform discussions in which experts bounced ideas off each other, discovering rich parallels between our work and sharing them in real time. Taking place from October through November, the eight dialogues united historians, editors, novelists, poets, and activists, and were filmed and shared online, to let the public enjoy and continue the discussions. For more details on the series and related events, please visit voices.uchicago.edu/censorship.

November 16: Policing Performance

Performers and an audience—in a way, theatrical performance is a technology whose fundamentals have not changed since antiquity. During this week of the series, we explored the history of theater censorship, using it as a contrast case to ask how information technologies have—or haven’t—affected a medium which seems so unchanging.

Brice Stratford & the Droll Players (performing banned 17th century plays)

Stephen Nicholson (UK theater censorship)

Elsa Sjunneson-Henry (burlesque performance)

Cory Doctorow (digital information policy)