Recorded April 5, 2023

Panelists: Dr Jane Suzanne Carroll (TCD), Dr David Kenny (TCD), Dr Martina Devlin, and Dr Nicholas Johnson (TCD).

With the recent news that publishers Puffin and the Roald Dahl Story Company have decided to rewrite potentially sensitive or offensive elements of the popular children’s books, our Behind the Headlines panel considers whether languages, images, and texts should be altered to suit the times, and what else is ‘subject to change’?

While some may argue that rewriting books amounts to a threat to literary expression—a throwback to ‘book banning’ or even censorship—others will point to the fact that works of fiction are being adapted all the time, based on the norms of the moment. And children’s books are not the only texts that are under revision; we expand our discussion to constitutional law and to the world of theatre as our panel considers how we can protect the integrity of a text throughout the ages.

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