So, Yale UP is, for the moment at least, publishing a book about the controversy surrounding the in/famous Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad. But the press has refused to print the cartoons themselves — or any of the other images of Muhammad that the author included with her manuscript. I don’t find myself in an especially high dudgeon about this. Which is to say, I don’t think the terrorists have won, or that the press is guilty of anything so heinous as pre-9/11 thinking. But it seems like Yale’s move was either to publish the book with the relevant images — I’m assuming that images, though not precisely which ones, were part of the original contract between author and publisher — or not publish it at all. Regardless, it’s an odd and somewhat unsettling story.
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The Edge of the American West 
61 comments
August 12, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Jason B.
It seems to me that there’s no serious discussion of the images if the images aren’t included. I think this caution may be either ill-advised or overly-cautious.
And my “may be” there is an admission of some uncertainty on my own part.
August 13, 2009 at 1:20 am
dia
I agree that it’s an unsettling story, and with Jason B.’s comment above.
It seems strange that the issue of reprinting the cartoons wouldn’t have been discussed candidly at the outset. This can’t have been an issue that blindsided the UP.
August 13, 2009 at 5:56 am
dana
I’m with Jason. Here are the pictures the sparked riots, and we will now talk about what in particular made some people think they were offensive! Oh, we can’t show them. The rationale in the article makes no sense to me:
But if they're freely available on the Internet, surely the impact of publishing the cartoons would be diminished, wouldn't it? And how does that explain the other photographs excluded?
I'm trying to think of similar treatments of objectionable photos, and I'm not coming up with anything offhand. There are photos of war, porn, artwork deemed offensive, violence, etc.
August 13, 2009 at 6:59 am
ajay
I’m trying to think of similar treatments of objectionable photos, and I’m not coming up with anything offhand. There are photos of war, porn, artwork deemed offensive, violence, etc.
Yes, but none of those are going to get you blown up if you publish them. There’s nothing mysterious about this, it’s the natural consequence of Yale UP’s perfectly human desires to a) make money and b) live to enjoy it. The only mystery is why anyone feels the need to look for any more high-minded rationale behind it.
August 13, 2009 at 7:01 am
Charlieford
If you don’t think the terrorists have won, the terrorists win.
August 13, 2009 at 7:06 am
dana
Yes, but none of those are going to get you blown up if you publish them.
I guess we’re estimating the risk of an academic publication and the attendant rewards differently.
August 13, 2009 at 7:10 am
JPool
I think it also misunderstands the nature of the original incident. The problem wasn’t the existence of the cartoons, but their commission and very public reproduction. Outside of that section of the Islamic public that was already convinced of the depravity of the West, for whom the cartoons just served as useful examples, the problem was that these cartoons were being aggressively put out there in the public square. This not the effect that a book from an academic press produces. We can blather on on the internet about the death of print journalism, but newspapers are still different from books; they’re more public and more immediate. Newspapers regularly choose not to publish the kind of objectionable photos that dana lists, because they’ll offend their reading public (though, I realize that the line on this is much broader in Europe’s print culture), even where such photos, disseminated by other means, are an essential part of the story. Essentially, the newspapers who reproduced the cartoons were saying, “We reject your concerns,” or more simply “You’re not part of our reading public.” Yale, however, because it’s a university press rather than a part of the mass culture, should assume that it can present difficult or troubling subject matter, with everyone who shows up ready to come to the table and discuss it seriously, and that the question will be how the images are treated, rather than their limited reproduction.
August 13, 2009 at 7:15 am
JPool
ajay, help me out. Exactly how many Danish newspaper publishers have exploded?
August 13, 2009 at 7:50 am
onymous
I don’t understand why the author would consent to publishing the book with a press that won’t print the pictures. Surely some other press would print it?
August 13, 2009 at 7:51 am
James B.
“I’m trying to think of similar treatments of objectionable photos, and I’m not coming up with anything offhand. There are photos of war, porn, artwork deemed offensive, violence, etc.”
I’m thinking of the controversy at MIT in 2006, when a Chinese student copied a rather gruesome piece of Japanese propaganda from John Dower’s “Visualizing Asia” project and sent it out in a mass email. The student claimed the picture, now devoid of its original context, demonstrated that Dower was engaged in a celebration of Japanese racism.
After heated exchanges between administrators and the Chinese student union, which some feared could turn violent, the “offensive” material was briefly removed from the site. Peter Perdue offered a cogent defense of his colleague, and the picture in question has since been restored.
August 13, 2009 at 8:34 am
PorJ
You can make all kinds of high-minded arguments here: for instance, the cartoons might be considered primary sources, and, as such, do not need to be referenced comprehensively or even directly (we all describe and summarize primary sources in our work without granting full access to our readership).
But the bottom line is simple: they chickened out.
They were afraid of the same thing US newspaper and magazine publishers were when the controversy first erupted – that polysemic readings would allow audiences some autonomy to interpret the cartoons. Once the cartoons are actually shown to the audience control over any message is somewhat lost; the effect of any well-meaning, scholarly, meticulously-documented essay on the needless provocation and insensitivity of publishing the cartoons will be limited by readers who see the cartoons themselves and decide “those people” are really loony to get so murderously upset by the cartoons.
Its a protection racket. Not just to make money and protect lives, as noted above by ajay (yes, that’s part of it). But its also done to protect interpretive/scholarly authority from the philistines and cretins whose ignorance might mislead them to alternative conclusions.
August 13, 2009 at 8:37 am
Ben Alpers
The example that immediately came to my mind was certain images from 9/11–bodies falling from the towers, close ups of severed limbs–that briefly appeared and then were more or less scrubbed from respectable sources. I’ve read plenty of articles discussing these images that refuse to reproduce them.
Then again, these were journalistic articles, not scholarly books. I’m in agreement with much that has already been said: Yale UP may be understandably reluctant to expose themselves to the negative publicity of reprinting these images, but if so, why did the author agree to publish with them? Or to say what hasn’t quite been said yet so bluntly: a scholarly book concerning these images ought to have the images in it. And I suppose I do think that the more honorable action by Yale UP would simply have been to refuse to publish the book had they felt unwilling to reproduce the images.
August 13, 2009 at 8:40 am
Jotham Parsons
Am I the only one who suspects a publicity stunt? Now YUP can back down, agree to publish the images, and make enough money to cover their deficit for a year. Two years if the riots actually materialize.
August 13, 2009 at 9:36 am
David
I don’t think anyone should underestimate the risks in this situation.
I work in book publishing (not at YUP) and I’ve had direct experience publishing controversial books. The Press owes not only its author and its mission, but its employees—and the university its students and faculty—very careful consideration in cases like this. Just one letter threatening violence (real or not) can bring not only great financial cost to the publisher, who has to bear the extraordinary cost of the security and other protective measures, but a great deal of turmoil and discomfort to the employees who show up to work wondering what the day’s mail might bring. An editorial assistant didn’t sign up to be a martyr to my notion of academic and publishing freedom and you can’t dismiss their concerns when you approach a situation like this.
Yale clearly didn’t take a very complicated decision lightly if you read the article. There’s a good reason that you can’t just stroll into the offices of a publisher in New York anymore and it isn’t because they’re worried you’re going to raid the lunch room icebox. A lot of these threats don’t become public, but that doesn’t make them any less serious for the author, the business, or its employees. With a subject like this, where there is a history of violence against publishers going back more than twenty years, it would be irresponsible not to take the risks involved to the whole Yale community very seriously.
Some may see YUP as an “academic press” but their books often get wide attention. Yale books regularly get covered in the mainstream media, reviewed in the NY Times, and there are more than a few that make one of the bestseller lists. They are quite arguably the most commercially minded and capable of all the university presses by a long shot. It’s not unlike this book would have gotten some interest from the media (it surely will now).
I don’t at all mean to dismiss the important issues of academic freedom and author’s rights here, but it looks to me as though Yale was very careful not to do so either. Although I would think that the photos would have been under discussion at the time the contract was signed, it would be a bit unusual for the photos to be specifically mentioned in the contract,. But even if they were, Yale’s standard book contact, like all publishers’, gives it the right to publish the final work or not. What’s more, once they made their decision, the author could have chosen to withdraw the book, but didn’t.
I haven’t read the book, but I do know that the real life implications of these decisions are very, very hard and I’d be careful about being too quick to criticize if you haven’t lived through such a situation.
August 13, 2009 at 9:47 am
dia
That’s a really thoughtful post, David. It still strikes me as odd that YUP would sign a deal for a book on this specific subject without making an initial decision on whether the images themselves would be reproduced (irrespective of whether the images were widely available in other places). That’s a non-editor/publisher perspective, though.
August 13, 2009 at 9:57 am
dana
I’m sure they were careful and I don’t doubt the decision was a tough one. I don’t think anyone has suggested they did it on a whim. I still think they are wrong.
August 13, 2009 at 10:44 am
JPool
David, I’ll add to the voices saying that I’m not trying to make light of the decisions facing publishers or the stress involved in working in an office that has attracted death threats. There has been real violence that has resulted from this situation, but there has also been a great deal exageration of the actual violence that has resulted (Theo van Gogh’s martydom to opionated assholes everywhere, notwithstanding). The linked article mentions that some 200 people were killed in the course of riots in reaction to the original publication of the cartoons, without noting that the vast majority of the those were the Africans and Middle Easterners doing the rioting outside of Europe.
Honestly, I don’t think this has anything to do with terrorists winning or even with academic freedom at this point (it’s one press). I just think it was a) a mistake for Yale to make this particular decision, and b) irresponsible and jerky for them to do it at the point of publication, rather than back when they signed the contract.
August 13, 2009 at 10:48 am
rja
David’s concerns seem reasonable, but we live in a diminished world if printing a Muhammad cartoon has become the substance of bravery. Discussing the impact of a visual object we’re not allowed to look at seems farcical.
August 13, 2009 at 10:50 am
David
dia,
That’s a fair point and it’s hard to know what happened if you weren’t there. My guess (and that’s all it is) would be that they did initially think that they’d publish the images the book, but in the later stages of review they began to appreciate the potential consequences more fully. It wouldn’t be the first time a publisher didn’t fully think through what it was getting into. In some ways, I admire their initial courage to take the book on and I think they’ve tried to do what’s right even as they stare down the risks.
That doesn’t mean that anyone has to think they got it right, just that everyone should appreciate that no matter what they chose to do, there would be valid criticisms of that decision from a host of parties with real interests in it. The real irony is that the safest decision—and the most cowardly—would have been to turn the book down as too risky from the get go.
August 13, 2009 at 10:57 am
ari
For my part, David, I think the editors at Yale took the decision seriously. And I tried in my post to note that I don’t think they’re guilty of crimes against the Homeland or anything silly like that. But I do think that publishing a book on a particular series of images — but neglecting to include the images — is nearly farcical. Further, I think that the press is making a calculated and craven decision to publish the book in this manner. If they didn’t want to publish the images, they should have pulled the contract at the back end. It’s the press’s right to do so, as we all know, and this is a case where that would have been the right thing to do. But I suspect that they do believe they can make money on this deal, and they’ve certainly invested time and effort into vetting the manuscript, so they’re cutting the baby in half. Given all that, were I the author, I’d consider pulling the book and getting paid to publish it with a trade press. The book now has quite the little marketing wave pushing it along, doesn’t it?
August 13, 2009 at 11:04 am
David
JPool,
I’m not suggesting that anyone here is making light of the decisions, I just thought it would be useful for everyone to appreciate their scope. Yes, there have been exaggerations about incidents, but there have been real incidents as well (and not just around books about Islam). It would, however, be irresponsible—morally and legally—to not take the matter very seriously.
August 13, 2009 at 11:12 am
dana
But I do think that publishing a book on a particular series of images — but neglecting to include the images — is nearly farcical.
Plus, part of the point of the book is to investigate historically-non-violence-provoking imagery in Islam, and to help us understand what really happened in the Danish newspaper case. Presumably, part of the motivation is to show that within the Muslim community there is substantial disagreement about these images, and thus we shouldn’t take the possibly-coordinated violent protests as typical of Islam. And here, we will illustrate our point by investigating reactions to the cartoons and other artwork…
Removing the images seems to me to undermine the point of the book in a — let’s call it farcical — way.
August 13, 2009 at 11:22 am
David
ari,
I seriously doubt that the author would get a trade press to take it on, it’s not a trade book. I wouldn’t touch for just that reason.
I don’t believe that Yale is acting out of a belief that by their actions they will clean up on the book. Publishers just aren’t that good at manipulating media and the sales channels to their benefit on the best of days, let alone in a situation as complicated as this one. Would that one of my books ever got that kind of calculated consideration. If you’re right, it’ll be a first in my experience.
August 13, 2009 at 11:29 am
ari
David, without knowing where you work, I find myself thinking the following: 1) You haven’t read the manuscript, so how do you know whether it would work for a trade list? 2) It sure sounds like a marketable book to me, even without this contretemps. 3) I mean, you’re saying that books on Islam, violence, and major political controversies don’t sell?
And no, I don’t think that Yale UP is manipulating the situation; that’s not what I said. I believe that they sent out the mss to a variety of readers, including diplomats(?!?!?), and then made their lousy choice. But I also think that someone there thinks the book will sell, which is what I wrote, and that’s why the press hasn’t simply pulled its offer to publish.
August 13, 2009 at 11:30 am
N. Merrill
I’d love to see the dossier of outside opinions that YUP compiled before making the decision. It sounds like the outsiders the press consulted said no to the images, though Reza Aslan’s pro-image-printing view seems really plausible to me.
August 13, 2009 at 11:32 am
ari
And really, in the end, the problem for me is that Yale is going to publish a diminished book, a book that isn’t going to be nearly as useful to readers or the literature in which it sits. And that’s just not okay, particularly when we’re talking about an academic press. So yes, they have a responsibility to act accordingly if they think that people are going to get killed over the content of one of their books: they shouldn’t publish it. In this case, though, they’re trying to have it both ways, trying to be safe (in their view), while still cashing in on a hot topic.
August 13, 2009 at 11:33 am
ari
My comment above was intended as an extension of my comment at 11:29. But then Neddy butted in, as he’s wont to do.
August 13, 2009 at 11:42 am
PorJ
Yale is going to publish a diminished book, a book that isn’t going to be nearly as useful to readers or the literature in which it sits. And that’s just not okay, particularly when we’re talking about an academic press.
I agree that’s it not O.K., but you are missing the point that the diminished book is useful for the authors’ authority and YUP, which undoubtedly disagrees with you on its contribution to the literature.
And therein lies my earlier point about the ideology of scholarly/academic publishing that frames the decision….
August 13, 2009 at 11:43 am
slimlove
David,
As someone who also works in publishing, I have to agree with Ari. Even if it’s really scholarly (and as you pointed out, Yale publishes beyond the scope of the purely academic), it’s on a topic that would garner interest, and it’s now getting plenty of attention. Not to mention that plenty of trade publishers do books that aren’t really “trade” – just off the top of my head, there’s Bill Cronon’s *Nature’s Metropolis,* a rather intimidating 600 pages and dealing with concepts of “second nature” – and which was published by Norton. Granted, that was nearly 20 years ago now, but I still doubt that an author or agent would have trouble selling this particular book to a trade publisher. And if I was this author, I’d certainly consider pulling the manuscript and shopping it around.
August 13, 2009 at 12:04 pm
JPool
PorJ,
I often have trouble following you, but particularly so here. You’re saying this is all elaborate shadow puppetry and the real aim of both Yale and the author, Jytte Klausen, is to not publish the (widely available) cartoons so that no one can disagree with Klausen’s interpretations. Do I have that right? Cause that’d be just silly, and it’d be pretty understandable for folks not to take you up on it.
August 13, 2009 at 12:05 pm
David
ari,
You are correct, I haven’t read the book. I’ll nonetheless stand by my statement that I seriously doubt that it is a trade book that a commercial publisher would take on. I may well be wrong, but it’s an informed opinion based on her track record and the subject, which I don’t think is as obviously commercial as you think it is. In any event, the author herself chose not to pursue it as she easily could have at the time. We’ll know in a couple of days whether any trade editor calls her up and says she’ll take it on with all the illustrations. If the author wants to move it, Yale won’t stand in her way. It’ll be in the Times if it happens.
Yale didn’t just pull its offer to publish because it decided to give the author the choice between taking out the illustrations or having them pull its offer to publish. This much is clear, they weren’t publishing the book with them. They obviously thought that they had come up with a workable, if unfortunate, alternative, whether or not any of us agree with that reasoning. (You’ll note I haven’t said that I do.) The author agreed, if reluctantly and even unhappily as it now appears.
I just wanted to add something to the understanding of the situation, not argue about the merits of their decision. I’m not sure I can defend their decision, or that I want to. I just wanted you to have a different perspective on it.
August 13, 2009 at 1:09 pm
PorJ
You’re saying this is all elaborate shadow puppetry and the real aim of both Yale and the author, Jytte Klausen, is to not publish the (widely available) cartoons so that no one can disagree with Klausen’s interpretations. Do I have that right? Cause that’d be just silly, and it’d be pretty understandable for folks not to take you up on it.
Close but not precisely what I’m arguing. I’m not arguing that Klausen is equally part of the decision-making process (I don’t question that she’d prefer them in the book). Nor am I arguing that executives at YUP are consciously making these decisions.
I’m arguing that – unlike, say, at this blog – there exists an ideology in academic publishing that structures the communicative dynamic with the audience. That framework – which is based primarily on protecting authority – plays a role in deciding what material (primary sources, secondary sources, etc.) the audience may access (we might even call it “editing” or “censorship”). These decisions require thought about audience reaction – and not just the reaction of homicidal maniacs. A lot of respectable academics and newspaper editors came out against re-publishing the cartoons in any venue at the time of the riots. It seems that a consensus amongst media workers and scholars (for whatever reason*) has emerged, and YUP is only acting in accordance with such calls for “civility” and “sensitivity.”
I’m saying the First Amendment is a b*tch because the protection of liberty requires defending the indefensible – people like nutcase Holocaust deniers and the publishers of obscenity. I don’t think re-publishing those cartoons make the world a better a place, but, more importantly: it educates. Therein lies their value, and their role in a book published by an academic press. Count me in with Art Spiegelman here:
* – Some of these scholars, like Juan Cole, are extremely thoughtful and persuasive in their arguments. See also these journalists and journalism ethicists coming to agreement on not re-publishing the cartoons. I respect – but disagree with – these arguments, but I’m pointing out that they are structured by an ideology concerning the representation of authority and the communicative dynamic with audiences.
August 13, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Anderson
I hope everyone’s looking forward to my new book from Yale U P, my 300-page study of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, without however any quotations from the subject text.
August 13, 2009 at 1:38 pm
ari
And David, I really do appreciate the perspective that you bring to the conversation. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
August 13, 2009 at 2:26 pm
TF Smith
Off-topic and betraying my ignorance of Islamic theology, but why, exactly, are pictorial images of the Prophet forbidden?
I know they are, but what is the theological argument for the prohibition? Is it simply the graven images/false idols concept?
Does it hold true for: A) God; B) any other theological figures from Islam (Satan, I suppose; angels, etc?); and C) any other human (ie, non-theological) figures from Islam (the Prophet’s family, his successors within islam, others perceived as prophets – Jesus, Moses, etc – etc.)?
Are/were there similar prohibitions on figures from the religions/mythologies of the Arabian peninsula’s cultures prior to Islam?
August 13, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Anderson
Wiki explains it all.
August 13, 2009 at 4:35 pm
serofriend
Danish cartoons
Not to nitpick, Ari, but aren’t these depictions of Muhammed considered caricatures, which lampoon a particular historical subject and exaggerate certain features (such as the nose, beard, body)? Cartoons dovetail with caricatures, but graphic arts specialists distinguish the latter from the former by the above definition. Most caricatures also have political ends, but I’m not quite sure that has to fit with the definition. Perhaps it depends on how and why artists manipulate the subject.
August 13, 2009 at 4:36 pm
serofriend
Muhammad, not Muhammed. Just a typo, but an important one.
August 13, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Ahistoricality
Muhammad, not Muhammed. Just a typo, but an important one.
???
Is there some meaning to the apparently incorrect second pronunciation? Given the diversity of Arabic romanizations, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone object to a certain transliteration, except to say that it’s not the best transcription of the sound, etc.
August 13, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Ahistoricality
Are/were there similar prohibitions on figures from the religions/mythologies of the Arabian peninsula’s cultures prior to Islam?
Judaism. c.f. Abraham and the Idols. Though in that case it’s the general impossibility of depicting the deity, rather than a concern about the false deification of prophetic figures.
August 13, 2009 at 5:35 pm
serofriend
Is there some meaning to the apparently incorrect second pronunciation?
I’ve read three different ways of spelling Muhammad: Muhammad, Mohammad, and Mohammed. I’ve never read a “Muhammed,” but I suppose that doesn’t preclude that particular transliteration.
August 14, 2009 at 2:52 am
ajay
Muhammad, not Muhammed. Just a typo, but an important one
No, it’s not important, it’s completely trivial, because it’s a transliteration from another alphabet. Muhammad and Muhammed are both fine, as are Mohammad, Mohammed, and Mohamed. I’ve never seen Muhamed or Mohamad but I wouldn’t have a problem with them.
PorJ: “there exists an ideology in academic publishing that structures the communicative dynamic with the audience. That framework – which is based primarily on protecting authority – plays a role in deciding what material (primary sources, secondary sources, etc.) the audience may access (we might even call it “editing” or “censorship”). These decisions require thought about audience reaction – and not just the reaction of homicidal maniacs.”
I think this theory is wrong – or at any rate it is not supported by the facts.
I do not think that you need to postulate such an ideology in order to explain this. Your theory suggests that other academic books dealing with the interpretation of visual media might also seize on controversy or “causing offence” as an excuse to avoid publishing the original images (in fact, they are doing so in order to protect their own interpretation).
This isn’t the case: are there books, for example, about Nazi propaganda posters which do not publish the posters themselves, ostensibly to avoid causing offence?
Can you point to any other cases in publishing where similar action has been taken for similar reasons? Are there, perhaps, books about the painters of the Renaissance that do not include reproductions of the paintings, because the nudity could offend? I don’t think so.
August 14, 2009 at 5:35 am
aflandshage
Just a minor remark form Copenhagen on the security issue. The original publisher – Jyllandsposten – guard the lobby to their main office in Copenhagen with two very sweet ladies and a glass door that they have to push a button to open. People would have to wear a sign saying terrorist in quite big letters not to be allowed entrance.
August 14, 2009 at 6:29 am
Anderson
Google: 13,500,000 hits for “Muhammed.”
36,300,000 for “Muhammad” (plurality winner).
28,400,000 for “Mohammed.”
If the “-ed” factions join forces, they can outvote the plurality.
August 14, 2009 at 8:40 am
JPool
PorJ,
I wasn’t sure how or whether to respond, but since ajay got the ball rolling:
I get the part of what you’re saying where you are complaining about and then saying nice things about and then stating your continued disagreement with those people who, in the course of the original controversy, argued against further reproduction of the cartoons in stories about the anger and protests that they inspired. I get that part, and, for my part, I explained up thread why I disagree with you and why I think the current case is different from that earlier one. The First Ammendment requires us to allow people to publish all sorts of horrible things. It doesn’t require us to believe that they were right to do, and the decision as to whether to reproduce the horrible things so as to better discuss them has to be done with an awareness of the context and message of doing so. So there’s that.
What I don’t get is the whole “there exists an ideology in academic publishing that structures the communicative dynamic with the audience” thing, mostly because you haven’t said what that ideology is or how it structures the communicative dynamic. You say it’s “based primarily on protecting authority” and that it “plays a role in deciding what material (primary sources, secondary sources, etc.) the audience may access.” a) This is crazy vague. b) Authors and editors don’t limit the material their readers can access; they limit which materials their books present directly and which materials they refer to through citation. To suggest that editing is the same as censorship, or even that “editting” is of the same category with “censorship”, misunderstands both censorship and the responsibility of authors and readers. Is your argument with books themselves, that they aren’t 2.0-y enough? Because once you’ve got pages and covers, you have to make choices about what you put in them.
August 14, 2009 at 9:27 am
Ahistoricality
Actually, if you add the
4,680,000 for Mohammad
then it’s a wash between the “ed” and “ad” transliterations, but “Mu” is clearly the winner over “Mo”
August 14, 2009 at 9:56 am
serofriend
that doesn’t preclude that particular transliteration
The reason I wrote the above is to make explicit my recognition that Mohammed is phonetic from Arabic. I’ve never read “Muhammed” in a book, but that doesn’t mean that scholars don’t spell it as such. I see it’s in the Urban Dictionary, which I guess means people Google it?
an important one
For the exact transliteration, the last letter is د or ‘Dal’ sounds like the English D sans vowels. Words have a number of phonetic representations, but placing an “e” next to the “d” is too much emphasis for linguistic specialists. I don’t think that “Muhammed” makes it into many official documents (excluding newspapers here). My source for the import of this argument is an undergrad Linguistics course at UC X.
August 14, 2009 at 10:00 am
TF Smith
Ahistoricality and Anderson –
Thanks for the responses.
August 14, 2009 at 10:00 am
serofriend
All this in the context of the “u”. There’s a reason why the “u” and the “e” are not usually associated. I just cannot recall why. Hoping someone else could!
August 14, 2009 at 10:02 am
PorJ
So there’s that.
Nicely clarifies first disagreement.
a) This is crazy vague.
Yes, because I don’t have space. But I’ll refer you to the sociological literature on journalism by people like Epstein, Schudson, Tuchman, and Gans. I’m essentially ripping off Gans’ paraideology theory and applying it to academic publishing. I agree that these theories (like Hegemony) are too vague but they can be useful analytical tools. Or not. I was attempting to (perhaps too vociferously) bring forth the ideological factors involved in the decision. Example: As I note above there exists a consensus in publishing circles about reprinting the cartoons. The editors at YUP are acting in accordance with that consensus because their belief system is such that this is preferable to 1. endangering their lives (I’m O.K. with that), and 2. allowing the audience interpretative autonomy (see link above to journalists’ discussion). Obviously, in the NYTimes article, they emphasize no.1. But they omit no. 2, which I’m arguing played a role. How important a role we’re debating.
To suggest that editing is the same as censorship, or even that “editing” is of the same category with “censorship”, misunderstands both censorship and the responsibility of authors and readers.
I don’t think there’s a categorical difference between censorship and editing (noted difference: originally, censorship referred only to the state’s power to control information). When the state edits something, somebody, somewhere, is going to accuse it of censorship. When the New York Times edits something, somebody, somewhere is going to accuse of it censorship. When Yale University Press edits something…..
Thanks for clarifying our differences.
August 14, 2009 at 11:48 am
serofriend
No, it’s not important, it’s completely trivial, because it’s a transliteration from another alphabet
I’ve been thinking about this topic more and, while I have no intention of debating this point further, isn’t the one-to-one mapping of linguistic systems (transliteration) different from transcription? I only have limited experience in transliteration, but limitations on phonetic variants seems central in understanding its utility. Your use of “transliteration” undermines your own argument.
In this context, Arabic transliteration uses “u” instead of “o” and “ad” instead of “ed.” Again, transliteration may run against first-wave Derridian poststructuralism and its egalitarian potential, which I fully recognize. But didn’t such limitless phonetics facilitate criticism of the structural relativism inherent in, for example, the methodologies in Of Grammatology?
In certain Native American tribes, violent debates rage over the provenance of, and racial codification within, competing words and systems of meaning. The association of wigwam, for example, and “white house” can shake up an entire tribal political system. I’m not sure what you mean by “trivial.”
Again, I don’t want to debate this point any further. Just wanted to clarify points that I subjectively feel are important, primarily because I bore witness to some of their consequences.
August 14, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Ahistoricality
Again, I don’t want to debate this point any further. Just wanted to clarify points that I subjectively feel are important, primarily because I bore witness to some of their consequences.
Nice backstory hints there. Not much in the way of an argument, but fraught with potential drama.
August 14, 2009 at 12:49 pm
serofriend
Yeah, I was feeling emotional at the end there.
August 15, 2009 at 6:19 am
PorJ
Doesn’t this support my thesis?:
Note how this differs with the NYTimes account.
August 15, 2009 at 6:48 am
PorJ
A couple of notes of clarification:
1. I accept Roger Kimball’s representation of his conversation with Klausen as accurate, and I believe it accurately reflects her perspective (especially because it elaborates on points elided in the NYTimes piece). If you don’t accept his reporting on this – for whatever reason – then we have a basic disagreement that can’t be bridged. I am also choosing to privilege Klausen’s version over anything YUP has said.
2. As I said above – and used the Siegelman quote to support – its entirely defensible from an ideological perspective to say: we did it to save lives (and stop bloodshed). Note David’s comments in this thread. My point about the ideological consensus on NOT republishing the cartoons was that there exists a belief system amongst scholars and media workers that to do so is insensitive, uncivil, and not worth the educative value. And, I went further: I accused them of not trusting the audience to “read” the cartoons with the same sensitivity and understanding that they possess; thus, to preserve THEIR perspective/authority on the cartoons they argue for not publishing them. Note that Yale University security was (apparently) not involved in the “cup of coffee” with Klausen, but the Chairman of the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale was… Isn’t that somewhat curious if the overriding concern was bloodshed rather than something else?
(and I do believe Oswald acted alone, by the way).
August 15, 2009 at 3:45 pm
grackle
A couple of comments on transliteration, particularly as it pertains to transliteration from Arabic to English. Arabic has a number of vocalizations that are not found in English. Transliteration of these sounds is accomplished by various conventions; many, if not most, academic works on Arabic or Islamic subjects mention in the introduction or in a key at the beginning of the work which of several transliteration systems that particular work will adhere to.
The system used by the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES) is one such widely used system. The Encyclopedia of Islam adheres to a slightly different one that is widely used in the field. The Encyclopedia Iranica uses yet another system for transliteration of the Arabic alphabet as used with Persian terminology. Often scholars will use one, another or a combination of these systems with some or several deviations from strict adherence due to personal preference. In addition, many works will use a particular system for all terms except those which have passed into common usage; thus in English we say ‘mosque’ which was an early approximation of the Egyptian pronunciation of what, in most systems would be transliterated as ‘masjid.’ (In Egyptian pronunciation the jim or J sound is hard like a hard ‘G’, and perhaps the early hearer did not hear the unemphasized final ‘D’, which would then approximate the sound ‘mosque’) Similarly, from custom, we say ‘Mecca’ although no transliteration system that I know of uses an English ‘C’ for any Arabic character; from long familiarity we could say ‘Koran’ even though most technical systems would use the form ‘Qur’an.’
Since some of these Arabic words have been used in European languages since the 16th century or before a wide variety of ways to transliterate them have been used. The form Mohammad was quite standard throughout the 19th century and into the 20th C. There was little fear that the name itself would be misunderstood but the transliteration doesn’t convey the spelling one would use in Arabic. Muhammad is closer, but it should have a dot under the ‘h’ if it were to accurately indicate the Arabic letter represented. In general writing this would just be fussy, and , given the history of the usage ‘Mohammad’, I suppose one could argue that ‘Muhammad’ is also fussy.
This doesn’t even get into the fact that ‘short’ vowels are seldom represented at all in Arabic (nor in Hebrew for that matter) except in sacred texts.
Net result: either use is OK, it’s your call.
August 15, 2009 at 3:57 pm
serofriend
either use is OK
I recalled the reasons for the “a” but not the reasons for the “u.” Either-or with Muhammad is closer works for me. Thanks, grackle, for your expertise.
August 15, 2009 at 5:40 pm
PorJ
O.K., now this is getting serious. The New York Times quoted John Donatich, the director of Yale University Press, as claiming that the experts’ recommendation to censor the images was “overwhelming and unanimous.” Check out the report from The Guardian:
Remember: Klausen has been unable to see the report because she wont sign a gag order. What’s really going on here? It gets more and more odd….
August 16, 2009 at 11:24 am
JPool
My point about the ideological consensus on NOT republishing the cartoons was that there exists a belief system amongst scholars and media workers that to do so is insensitive, uncivil, and not worth the educative value.
See this is where you’re entirely wrong and undercutting any validity your point might have (though linking to Pajamas Media certainly doesn’t help). As should be clear from this little discussion right here, there is no ideological consensus in academia or academic publishing. About anything. But certainly not about whether the cartoons ought to be reproduced, either in the original incident, almost four years ago now, or in critical discussions of them today. If you left out the “ideological consensus” bit and added the word “some” after “amongst”, then what you say would be perfectly accurate, but then what purpose would your meaningless and inaccurate generalizations about academic presses serve? All you’re left with is “YUP agrees with those who agree with it.”
I wasn’t confused by your earlier statements because I’d never heard of Gans. I don’t have a huge background in Mass Comm, but this stuff is old enough that I’m generally familiar with it through show like WNYC’s “On the Media.” I was confused because the term “ideology” ought to refer to something describable, which is then, you know, described. Gans used ideology in the weak sense of world view, but this means less than nothing unless you spell out what that world view is and how it’s led people and institutions to make the choices that they’ve made. You’ve had plenty of space here to get around to what you’re actually saying.
On the things you’ve posted more recently, YUP clearly wants to suggest that there’s a consensus in this area that they’re just complying with rather than a choice that they’re making, which, just as clearly, there isn’t. As for why they brought along Marcia Inhorn to the meeting with Klausen, I don’t know, but presumably it was because they thought that a fellow academic could be more persuasive to Klausen than some jerk publisher.
August 16, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Marie
I get why spelling is important if people are trying to standardize it. Translating important names any way you want is not a good idea. From reading these comments, I think that sometimes people make generalizations, which may lead to arguments on “ideological consensus” and other issues.
August 17, 2009 at 7:59 am
ajay
a) This is crazy vague.
Yes, because I don’t have space. But I’ll refer you to the sociological literature on journalism by people like Epstein, Schudson, Tuchman, and Gans
By not linking or summarising, PorJ displays his agreement with the dominant academic ideology of restricting access to the primary sources in order to protect the sanctity of his own interpretation :)
And, more seriously, doesn’t the fact that all these academics said “Publish the cartoons!” completely undermine your theory that academics all generally hate publishing primary sources in order to protect their own interpretations? And, as JPool points out, completely undermine your belief that “there exists a belief system amongst scholars and media workers that to do so is insensitive, uncivil, and not worth the educative value”?
And, furthermore, if academics habitually used excuses like “we don’t want to cause offence” to avoid having to expose primary sources to view (where they might be interpreted differently), you’d be able to cite at least one example of this actually happening.
I think you’re off on the wrong track here frankly.