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54:45

Alan Dershowitz's Philosophy of Law.

Civil liberties lawyer Alan Dershowitz is known as a defender of free speech and an advocate for the right to a passionate defense. Dershowitz has defended many controversial figures and is currently involved in the Claus von Bulow and Jack Henry Abbott cases. He has been a professor at Harvard Law School since the age of twenty-eight. His new book is "The Best Defense."

Interview
36:50

Balancing Free Speech with Child Safety

Philadelphia Councilwoman Joan Specter and Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union debate what legislative or prosecutorial action should be taken against published work which either advocates for or features pedophilia. Prompting the discussion was the discovery of a pamphlet titled "How to Have Sex with Children," which was sold in Philadelphia bookstores.

01:05:56

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut on Writing, Science, and Being an Atheist in a Foxhole.

Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most prominent of contemporary novelists. His work often contains paradoxes and explores ideas from his science background. Vonnegut was also a P. O. W. in Dresden during the U.S firebombing of the city, an experience that was a subject in his novel "Slaughterhouse-Five." Vonnegut's works have often been banned, and he is active in a movement of writers to defend free speech rights in the U. S. and abroad. He recently traveled abroad as a representative of the organization PEN to report on intellectual freedom in Eastern Europe.

Interview
23:41

Obscenity or Discrimination?

Philadelphia Ed Hermance is named as a co-conspirator in an obscenity trial in England for smuggling "obscene" materials to London's prominent gay bookstore Gay's the Word. Hermance is the co-owner of Philadelphia's Giovanni's Room, a gay and feminist bookstore, and he believes the trial represents discrimination.

Interview
27:03

New Threats to Freedom of the Press

Lawyer and First Amendment expert Martin Garbus has a new book called Traitors and Heroes. He discusses the Lenny Bruce obscenity trials, the Reagan administration's effect on news coverage, and censorship issues abroad.

Interview
18:07

Publishing Banned Books.

Czechoslovakian writer and publisher Josef Skvorecky (shkor-et-skee). Since fleeing Czechoslovakia in 1968, Skvorecky and his wife have lived in Toronto, where they run "68 Publishers," an outlet for dissident writers. For years, the output of his publishing house has been smuggled into his former homeland, and secretly passed from hand-to hand, keeping alive the voices of Czech writers such as Vaclav Havel and Milan Kundera.

Interview
03:51

Three Books on Salman Rushdie are Mostly Disappointing

Critic John Leonard says the new trio of texts exploring the controversy stirred by the Satanic Verses vary in style, form, and slant. But all of them overlook a neglected part of the story: the responses of religious leaders in the West, who seemed to have learned nothing from their faith traditions' condemnation of great thinkers like Galileo, Martin Luther, and even Jesus Christ.

Review
22:28

Writer Gyorgy "George" Konrad.

Hungarian writer Gyorgy Konrad. When he was 11 he bribed local police so that he and his sister could leave town and escape being deported. In 1974 he and a fellow writer were arrested in Budapest and imprisoned shortly for writing a sociological manuscript which was considered "subversive." Asked to leave the country, he decided a writer "should not emigrate, should not turn away from the risks of his profession." Konrad has written several novels, "The Case Worker," "The City Builder.

Interview
03:38

A Controversial Take on Free Speech

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews "Free Speech for Me--But Not for Thee," by Nat Hentoff. The iconoclastic writer gives his opinions on various free speech issues -- many of which he reported on as a journalist.

Review
16:31

Authors of Books about Children with Gay Parents.

Terry talks with two authors of children books which were once part of the reading list for the Rainbow curriculum in the New York Public schools. The two books were controversial, and removed from the list, because they dealt with children of gay parents. Leslea (Les-LEE-ah) Newman is the author of "Heather has Two Mommies," and Michael Willhoite wrote "Daddy's Roommate." (Both books are published by Alyson Publishers, Boston, Mass).

20:48

Director Milos Forman on the Complexity of Larry Flynt

Forman talks about his life, filmmaking career and his latest project, directing "The People vs. Larry Flynt." Among his film credits: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next," "Hair," and "Ragtime." Forman won an Academy Award for Best Director for the film "Amadeus." Forman was born in Caslav, Czechoslovakia and became an American citizen in 1975. He lives in New York.

Interview
21:01

Filmmaker Jamsheed Akrami

Filmmaker Jamsheed Akrami is a scholar of Iranian film. His two documentaries are Dreams Betrayed and Friendly Persuasion: Iranian Cinema After the Revolution. Together, they explore Iranian filmmaking before and after the 1979 revolution. In Iranian films, male and female characters are not allowed to touch, ever, and women must be veiled at all times. Despite these and other limitations, Iranian cinema has garnered international critical acclaim. Akrimi is an associate professor at William Paterson University.

Interview
38:39

Author Diane Ravitch

Ravitch is the author of the new book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. In her book she chronicles the efforts of school boards and bias and sensitivity committees to edit and shape the textbooks that end up in classrooms. Some examples of this include: omitting the mention of Jews in an Isaac Bashevis Singer story about prewar Poland, changing the expression "My God!" to "You don't mean it," and recommending that children not be shown as disobedient or in conflict with adults.

Interview
06:01

'Persian Cats' Just Want To Rock 'N' Roll ... In Iran.

No One Knows about Persian Cats, which won the Special Jury Prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival, has now opened in theaters across the U.S. Critic John Powers says that Bahman Ghobadi's film — about outlaw musicians in Iran — is a reminder of the liberating potential of rock.

Review
10:52

Barney Rosset: A Crusader Against Censorship Laws.

The book publisher who championed the works of beat poets and Samuel Beckett, and who defied censors with the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Tropic of Cancer, died Tuesday at age 89. Fresh Air remembers Rosset with excerpts from a 1991 interview.

This interview was originally broadcast on Apr. 9, 1991.

Obituary

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