Culture Vulture: Interview with Prof. Jytte Klausen
by Helen Epstein
Go here for information about a live-chat, scheduled for August 23rd, with Helen Epstein on “The Art of Narrative Writing.”
HE: How did this situation evolve?
Professor Jytte Klausen
HE: When you first signed your contract, did you plan to publish all the cartoons?
JK: Yes. But please note that I am not talking about publishing each cartoon but reprinting the entire page as it was printed in the Danish newspaper on Sept 30, 2005. People think they know all about the cartoons but few people understand the humor in some of them, the references to specific Danish events, etc.. Few people notice that some of the cartoons portray Muslims as victims of the editors, and make fun of the editors. Others are racialist depictions in the tradition of European antisemitism. That is why it was important to include them. Still, I accepted they could be risky for a university and consented to removing the page. The other illustrations have never proven controversial.
HE: How does the decision reflect on the content of your book?
JK: The illustrations were central to an argument in one chapter about the history of depiction in Persian, ottoman, and Western art. The removal of the cartoons was not so serious because people can find the pages elsewhere. But the discussion of the history of depiction will probably be hard to follow.
HE: Do you think Yale came under pressure from anyone or was just motivated by fear?
JK: No, Yale University was not pressured. Fear perhaps in the case of the cartoons, but the argument about security risk gradually shifted to the terrain of less tangible concerns about offending or being seen as anti-Arab. My book is not anti-Muslim, and I find the assumption that Muslims “out there” may be ready to erupt into primordial anger at bad pictures offensive.
Helen Epstein is the author of “Joe Papp: An American Life” and “Tina Packer Builds a Theater.”
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Another example of what makes this a wonderful project, and not simply a replacement for the Globe’s vanishing arts writing.
The joke, of course, is that censorship in no way helps Muslims or Islam. On the contrary, I think many will be even more skeptical towards Islam and Muslims because of their interference in the western tradition of research and publishing. We know and understand what free research means to our societies.
This has been very simplified. Certainly, there was pressure! Certainly, Klausen should have found another publisher instead of bowing and rationalizing. Certainly, PC had something to do with this. And what about the comment recently made by Flemming Rose, Editor, Jyllands-Posten: “The big irony of this case is that Jytte Klausen never thought the cartoon crisis was about freedom of expression. She thought it was about mocking a weak and voiceless minority. I wonder if she still holds to this belief.” Far too many academics are inherently cowardly. Their careers depend upon it!
G. Tod Slone, Founding Editor, 1998
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[…] by Danish Imams to Egypt contributed to widespread uproar. Yale University Press did not allow the author Jytte Klausen to republish the cartoons in her book, which says something about how presses regard […]
Prof. Slone is, as usual, obsessed with “political correctness”– and while that might be part of the equation, what isn’t being discussed is the violence and threats of further violence that followed the original publication of the cartoons in Jyllands-Posten.
Given the precedent of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie after the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1989, it is hard to imagine this not being a factor under consideration: While Rushdie is still very much alive, there were many successful assassinations of others associated with the novel, such as some of the translators
Yale University is a soft target. Slone is entitled to consider the decision “cowardly” but this was about fear, not “political correctness.” If it had simply been a case that the Muslim community found the cartoons offensive, Yale would have gone ahead; the issue was that there was a radical fringe that had already demonstrated a willingness to engage in violence.
The cartoons, by the way, can be found on wikimedia commons:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/75/Jyllands-Posten-pg3-article-in-Sept-30-2005-edition-of-KulturWeekend-entitled-Muhammeds-ansigt.png