Focuses on the censorship controversy in Peterborough County, Ontario, from 1976 to 1985, and examines the attack on, defense of, and counter argument to teaching Margaret Laurence's "The Diviners." Generalizes the anticensorship stance often taken by English teachers to defend the teaching of controversial literary works. (JK)

A rebellion against a work of literature in a course on women's literature and feminist criticism appeared to be censorship. Questions are raised about several topics. They are the following: (1) censorship and the selection of literature; (2) the literary versus the stock response; and (3) humanistic assumptions underlying the educational value…

Examines a high school literature censorship case, and challenges the assumption that values can be "absorbed" through emotional engagement with a "transparent" text. Concludes with guidelines for avoiding indoctrination by viewing literature as the construction of fictional worlds whose values are decoded by calculated acts of…