Art and Freedom of Speech [Hardcover]

Randall P. Bezanson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0252034430 | ISBN-13: 978-0252034435 | Edition: 1st Edition

Art on trial: exploring the Supreme Court's rulings on free expression

Editorial Reviews

Review

 

"Bezanson writes in an accessible styles that engages even the uninformed reader and uses case studies to present a wide range of core issues and topics involving art and free speech. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice

Book Description

This book analyzes the broad range of Supreme Court cases that concern the protection of art and free speech under the First Amendment. Finding that debates about free expression (whether in speech or art) swirl around sex and cultural blasphemy, Randall P. Bezanson tracks and interprets the Court's decisions on film, nude dancing, music, painting, and other visual expressions.

 

Showing how the Court has dealt with judgments of art, quality, meaning, and how to distinguish types of speech and expression, Bezanson explores issues as diverse as homosexuality in the Boy Scouts, gay and lesbian parade floats, 2 Live Crew's alleged copyright infringement, National Endowment for the Arts grants and diversity, dangerous art, and screenings of the film Carnal Knowledge. In considering the transformative meaning of art, the importance of community judgments, and the definition of speech in Court rulings, Bezanson focuses on the fundamental questions underlying the discussion of art as protected free speech: What are the boundaries of art? What are the limits on the government's role as supporter and "patron" of the arts? And what role, if any, may core social values of decency, respect, and equality play in limiting the production or distribution of art?

 

Accessibly written and evocatively argued, Art and Freedom of Speech explores these questions and concludes with the argument that, for legal purposes, art should be absolutely free under the First Amendment--in fact, even more free than other forms of speech.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press; 1st Edition edition (August 11, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252034430
• ISBN-13: 978-0252034435
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,093,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Randall P. Bezanson
David H. Vernon Professor of Law
[e-mail]
319-335-9171
430 Boyd Law Building

BS, Northwestern University, 1968
JD, University of Iowa College of Law, 1971

Following his graduation from the Iowa Law School, Professor Bezanson served as a clerk to Judge Robb of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and, during the 1972 term (1972-73), as a clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court. Following his clerkship with Justice Blackmun, Professor Bezanson joined the faculty of the Iowa Law School, where he remained until 1988, serving also as a vice president of The University of Iowa from 1979-84. In 1988 Professor Bezanson moved to Virginia to become Dean of the Washington & Lee University School of Law. He served as Dean of W & L from 1988 to 1994, returning to the Iowa faculty in the fall of 1996.
Professor Bezanson's teaching centers on constitutional law, freedom of speech and press, and mass communication law, but he also teaches in the fields of administrative law, law and medicine, law and journalism, and torts. He presently teaches Constitutional Law, The First Amendment, and Seminars on Freedom of the Press, the Religion Guarantees, and Law and Technology.
Professor Bezanson's scholarship spans the fields of administrative law, constitutional law, first amendment theory, defamation and privacy law, law and medicine, and the history of freedom of the press. He has published in many law reviews and journals, including the California Law Review, the Illinois Law Journal, the Iowa Law Review, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review. In 1987 he published, with coauthors Gilbert Cranberg and John Soloski, Libel Law and the Press, Myth and Reality (Free Press, Macmillian), a book that has received wide attention and was given the National Distinguished Service Award for Research in Journalism in 1988 by the Society of Professional Journalists, Sigma Delta Chi. His book Reforming Libel Law (Guilford Communication series, 1992), which Professor Bezanson co-edited with John Soloski, Director of the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is used in undergraduate and graduate journalism programs throughout the country. Professor Bezanson's book Taxes on Knowledge in America: Exactions on the Press from Colonial Times to the Present (1994, U. Penn. Press), explores the history of taxation of the press in England and America. His most recent books are Speech Stories: How Free Can Speech Be?, published in 1998 by the New York University Press; Taking Stock: Journalism and the Publicly Traded Newspaper Company (2001), coauthored with Gil Cranberg and John Soloski of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and supported by the Open Society Institute of New York; How Free Can the Press Be? published in 2003 by the University of Illinois Press; How Free Can Religion Be U. Ill Press 2006); and Art and Freedom of Speech (U. Illinois Press, Sept. 2009).
Professor Bezanson has been a member of the American Law Institute (ex officio) and the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and has drafted legislation on a broad range of topics, including civil commitment of the mentally ill, treatment of the terminally ill, surrogacy and assisted conception, and defamation and invasion of privacy. He was the Reporter and principal drafter of the Uniform Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (NCCUSL 1985, 1989), the Defamation ACT (NCCUSL 1993), the Uniform Correction or Clarification of Defamation Act (NCCUSL 1994), and Iowa's Civil Commitment Law (1975).
Professor Bezanson is a member of the Iowa Bar.