When we talk about what "freedom of speech" means in America, the discussion almost always centers on freedom rather than speech. Taking for granted that speech is an unambiguous and stable category, we move to considering how much freedom speech should enjoy. But, as Randall Bezanson demonstrates in Speech Stories, speech is a much more complicated and dynamic notion than we often assume. In an age of rapidly accelerated changes in discourse combined with new technologies of communication, the boundaries and substance of what we traditionally deem speech are being reconfigured in novel and confusing ways.
In order to spark thought, discussion, and debate about these complexities and ambiguities, Bezanson probes the "stories" behind seven controversial free speech cases decided by the Supreme Court. These stories touch upon the most controversial and significant of contemporary first amendment issues: government restrictions on hate speech and obscene and indecent speech; pornography and the subordination of women; the constitutionality of campaign finance reform; and the treatment to be accorded new technologies of communication under the Constitution. The result is a provocative engagement of the reader in thinking about the puzzles and paradoxes of our commitment to free expression.
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Editorial Reviews
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"Are they needed? To be sure. The Darwinian industry, industrious though it is, has failed to provide texts of more than a handful of Darwin's books. If you want to know what Darwin said about barnacles (still an essential reference to cirripedists, apart from any historical importance) you are forced to search shelves, or wait while someone does it for you; some have been in print for a century; various reprints have appeared and since vanished." -Eric Korn, "Times Literary Supplement"
About the Author
Randall Bezanson is Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. His previous books include the award- winning Libel Law and the Press, coauthored with Gilbert Granberg and John Soloski, and his most recent, Taxes on Knowledge in America: Exactions on the Press from Colonial Times to the Present.
Randall P. Bezanson David H. Vernon Professor of Law randy-bezanson@uiowa.edu 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.
Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
consumer council, immature antic, anonymous leaflet, independent expenditures
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
First Amendment, Supreme Court, Carnal Knowledge, The Artist, Justice Marshall, The Pharmacist, Fuck the Draft, General Motors, Justice Stewart, The Author, The Burning Cross, The Burning Flag, Paul Cohen, The Foreman, Marlboro Man, Sex Kittens, Billy Jenkins, Justice O'Connor, Michigan State Chamber of Commerce, Justice Kennedy, Justice Brennan, Justice Scalia, Virginia Pharmacy, Los Angeles County Courthouse, Broad Avenue Cinema
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