In 1912 in Toronto the Congregationalist lay minister, Robert B. St. Clair was arrested and convicted of circulating obscene literature, after he published and distributed an explicit description of a performance called The Darlings of Paris that played at a local burlesque house called the Star Theatre. St. Clair's experiences and its aftermath provide a lens through which to view the problem that the regulation of obscenity posed for moral reformers in Toronto during this period. Adopting a broad understanding of the concept of regulation and paying close attention to the discourses evident in a variety of primary sources, this thesis examines the St. Clair case against its religious, literary, social and legal backdrop. It discusses the origins of Canadian obscenity law and contrasts the regulation of the obscene in Canada during this period with the situation in England and the United States. This thesis shows that the ability of moral reformers in Toronto to regulate obscenity, and the Toronto stage in particular, was on the decline by 1913. Doubt was creeping into legal and extra-legal discourses that the words obscene, indecent and immoral had absolutely certain meanings, but there was still substantial certainty that art was morally uplifting. The sense that art could have immoral, indecent or pornographic aspects, and could therefore be difficult to distinguish from obscenity, had not yet entered Canada's, and particularly Ontario's, legal sensibility, but it was on its way.

In 1912 in Toronto the Congregationalist lay minister, Robert B. St. Clair was arrested and convicted of circulating obscene literature, after he published and distributed an explicit description of a performance called The Darlings of Paris that played at a local burlesque house called the Star Theatre. St. Clair's experiences and its aftermath provide a lens through which to view the problem that the regulation of obscenity posed for moral reformers in Toronto during this period. Adopting a broad understanding of the concept of regulation and paying close attention to the discourses evident in a variety of primary sources, this thesis examines the St. Clair case against its religious, literary, social and legal backdrop. It discusses the origins of Canadian obscenity law and contrasts the regulation of the obscene in Canada during this period with the situation in England and the United States. This thesis shows that the ability of moral reformers in Toronto to regulate obscenity, and the Toronto stage in particular, was on the decline by 1913. Doubt was creeping into legal and extra-legal discourses that the words obscene, indecent and immoral had absolutely certain meanings, but there was still substantial certainty that art was morally uplifting. The sense that art could have immoral, indecent or pornographic aspects, and could therefore be difficult to distinguish from obscenity, had not yet entered Canada's, and particularly Ontario's, legal sensibility, but it was on its way. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

This thesis will critically analyse Australia’s censorship laws with a specific focus on the regulation of pornography distributed via the internet, a means of mass production and distribution of pornography. It will be argued that Australia’s current censorship laws are deficient because their focus is morality based. A morality based approach does not take into account what pornography is and does; in particular, the sex equality harms to real women and the inequality within society caused by pornography. This thesis will argue that the current censorship regime is an ineffective means of regulating internet pornography because it fails to address the complexities of internet regulation and the selling and marketing of sexual inequality online. This thesis will also argue that these censorship laws have had little or no impact in reducing the availability of pornography distributed via the internet. This thesis argues that a civil rights/equal opportunity approach to pornographic harm, as proposed by the anti-pornography civil rights ordinance drafted by American feminists Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (“the ordinance”), should be adopted into Australian law. The ordinance will be examined with a particular focus on how it can be amended and incorporated into Australian equal opportunity legislation in order to more effectively regulate the distribution of pornography via the internet in a manner that addresses the harms to social inequality caused by pornography.

STANDUP COMEDY AS ARTISTIC EXPRESSION: LENNY BRUCE, THE 1950s, AND AMERICAN HUMOR by ANDREA SHANNON PRUSSING-HOLLOWELL Under the Direction of Michelle Brattain ABSTRACT Despite the common memory of the 1950s being an intolerant, conformist decade, many “underground” cultures developed and thrived in response to America’s homogenized national culture. Lenny Bruce was immersed within these cultures, using standup comedy as a vehicle to express his and his audiences’ disillusionment. This thesis aims to place Bruce back in his original context of the 1950s in order to understand why the 1960s youth embraced him as their own. By examining the 1950s underground, the history of standup comedy, and Bruce’s comedy, the 1950s youth emerge as an important precursor to the 1960s social movements, and Bruce’s martyrdom as a free speech crusader becomes more understandable and tragic. INDEX WORDS: Lenny Bruce, Standup comedy, 1950s, Humor, Beats, Obscenity, Free speech, Satire

Thesis (M.S.W.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-141). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 278-305). Also available online

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 10, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

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Although federal circuit and district court judges are placed within a federal hierarchy, and receive legal and judicial training that emphasizes the importance of the judicial framework and its structure, such judges are also subjected to other pressures such as the types of litigants within the courtrooms as well as their local political environment. Furthermore, such judges are apt to form their own views about politics and legal policy and are often appointed by presidents who approve of their ideological leanings. Thus, federal courts are caught between competing goals such as their willingness to maximize their preferred legal policy, and their place within the judicial hierarchy. This dissertation applies hierarchy and impact theory to assess the importance of the judicial framework and its socialization, by analyzing both the judicial opinions and votes of federal circuit and district court judges in obscenity cases during a four-decade period (1957-1998). The research presented here finds the influence of higher court precedent to correspond in part with the conception of a judicial hierarchy. An analysis of citations of Supreme Court precedent (Roth v. United States (1957) and Miller v. California (1973)) in lower court majority opinions suggests low levels of compliance: lower courts at the circuit and district court level do not signal to the Supreme Court their acceptance of High Court doctrine; thus, except for 'factual' cases, most circuit and district court decisions do not comply formally with higher court precedent. An analysis of judicial votes, however, suggests that a Supreme Court doctrinal shift (to Miller v. California) influences lower court decisions only at the circuit court level. Further investigation suggests that Supreme Court precedent has a greater influence in circuit courts than in district courts: not only is the magnitude greater for circuit (versus district) court decisions, such results occur when controlling for such factors as the appointing president, regional variations, various constitutional claims and types of litigants. Thus, it appears that the influence of Supreme Court doctrine is much stronger in the circuit courts (only one step removed from the Supreme Court) than in district courts yet the hierarchy is influential nonetheless.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Motion Picture Association of America have strict guidelines for regulating sex, nudity and obscene language in television and movies, but do not regulate violence nearly as much (Donnerstein & Linz, 1994; Robson, 2004). However, empirical evidence suggests that violence can be harmful to children’s moral development (Byrne, Linz, & Potter, 2009). The current study examined if younger siblings are exposed to more obscene television at younger ages than older siblings, and if exposure to obscene television affects their moral development. For the purpose of this study, obscenity was defined as sex, nudity, obscene language, and violence, and the effects of each aspect of obscenity on moral development were studied separately. Participants will be asked about how much obscene television they watched growing up and then will be tested on how they would behave in morally wrong or morally ambiguous situations. The proposed results suggest that exposure to violent television can negatively affect moral development. Instead of regulating for sex, nudity, and obscene language, the FCC and the MMPA should focus more on the negative effects of violence.