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Article: Northampton.
- Article from:
- American Scholar
- Article date:
- March 22, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Phi Beta Kappa Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Northampton courthouse, September 1960. I am sitting with my colleague, mentor, and friend Newton Arvin, who is one of three members of the Smith College faculty charged with possessing pornography. I recall a large space, the unimpressive judge seated on a dais in his robes, faceless clerks and stenographers, a sprinkling of gawkers. There must have been reporters and photographers in the chamber, but I don't remember them.
What I do remember is the tense and white-faced defendant, the feeling of having been plunked down in an alien space, the piles of "obscene" magazines stacked on a table below the judge's bench, the droning voice stating the charges, and my ...