Donna Dennis

Department of History
didennis@princeton.edu

Donna Dennis's research, "Obscenity Law and the Censorship of Erotic Literature in New York City, 1820-1860," seeks to explain the relationship between early public policies and legal discourse concerning "obscenity" and the organization of sexual culture in the antebellum United States. Specific research questions include: What was the nature of the governmental response to sexually explicit or otherwise controversial literature in antebellum New York City? What functions did state censorship serve? Did the content of laws and legal rules directed at erotic materials change over time and, if so, how? When does "pornography" appear as a sub-genre within the general legal category of obscenity? What types of sexual representations were most condemned or suppressed? What were the normative functions of the law of obscenity on sexual culture and discourse? Alternatively, what effect did the pornographic publications and popular discourse about sex have on legal discourse and regulatory practices? Did an ideology of freedom of expression begin to develop in opposition to state censorship of "obscene" representations and, if so, what for did it take?