In a message dated 22/06/2005 03:34:29 GMT Standard Time, chtodel@cox.net writes:
From: DN
To: 'D. Barton Johnson'
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 1:23 AM
Subject: TR : From Marty Asher
Dear Don,
Thought you and the List would be interested in some of the planned LO Anniversary events. The mention of Oprah stems from the enthusiastic pole-position illustrated mention of the original Putnam edition in May 1 Anniversary of her magazine.
Anthony Stadlen's fear that the title -- or for that matter just the word "sexuality" -- must be altered to escape "quarantine" seems exaggerated. However it's quite
Dear Don, DN and List,
In a message dated 21/06/2005 16:16:52 GMT Standard Time, cangrande@bluewin.ch writes:
Anthony Stadlen's fear, while announcing his seminars, that the title LOLITA -- or for that matter the mere word "sexuality" --must be altered to escape "quarantine" seems exaggerated.
Not exaggerated. It actually happened, during this last month. I received automated emails informing me that just this had happened in respect of "Lolita", and separate automated emails saying that just this had happened in respect of "sexuality", in emails I had sent announcing my seminars.
Many of my non-bowdlerised emails got through, as I have been told. But some did not, and so I re-sent them bowdlerised.
This has never happened before, although I have probably sent multiple emails containing "sexuality" before, though not "Lolita".
The emails in question were announcing a series of my monthly Inner Circle Seminars, which I have been running in London for psychotherapists and others monthly since 1996. The series for the second half of 2005 contains seven seminars on literary and philosophical figures with anniversaries during this period whose writings are important for the foundations of psychotherapy: Sartre, Schiller, Coleridge, Freud/Nabokov, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Levinas. I announced the Freud/Nabokov seminar, on 16 October, as follows:
<< * 16 October: FREUD'S "DORA", NABOKOV'S "LOLITA", AND PSYCHOTHERAPY.
We celebrate the centenary of the publication (October 1905) of Freud's "Dora" case and the 50th anniversary of the publication (October 1955) of Nabokov's novel Lolita. This will be a 12-hour seminar. The seminar will examine historical findings on Dora and her family from Anthony Stadlen's research over nearly three decades. Dora and Herr K. were roughly the same ages as Lolita and Humbert when these older men sexually molested these girl-children. Ernest Jones, psychoanalyst and Freud's authorised biographer, described Dora as "a disagreeable creature who preferred revenge to love"; while Lionel Trilling, the eminent, psychoanalytically informed literary critic and abridger of Jones's Freud biography, described "Lolita" as a novel about "love". The seminar will explore what these descriptions imply about the psychoanalytic conception, or misconception, of "love". >>
It was this (embedded in a lengthy emailed list of descriptions of seminars for 2005 and 2006) that led to my being informed by automated emails that my emails were being put in "quarantine" for 30 days and would not reach their destination. In some cases, my emails got through, as I learned, but I others they did not. Some of the polite automated emails informing me of the "quarantine" explained that the offending word was "Lolita"; others, that it was a word containing the letters "sex". A telephone number was given for me to ask for further information. I rang it, and was told politely that the words were detected, and the "quarantine" imposed, automatically (which was in any case clear).
If anyone is interested in attending my Freud/Nabokov seminar on 16 October (or any of the other Inner Circle Seminars), please contact me at stadlen@aol.com for further information.
Anthony Stadlen