This paper is a case study of a graduate class in women's literature and feminist criticism, in which student rebellion against one of the works to be studied appeared to be an instance of censorship. Proceeding from a definition of censorship as agnosis or resistance to knowing, the author defends the legitimacy of the students' refusal to read or to know within the context of their emergent ideological identity. The paper raises questions about the relationship between censorship and selection of literature texts, the literary versus the stock response, and humanist assumptions underlying the educational value of literature.
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