24 / The Core RENAISSANCE WOMAN Historian Ada Palmer researches the history of ideas, writes science fiction, and has helped elect a new pope (c. 1470) four times.

By Carrie Golus, AB’91, AM’93

t’s only the second day of Ada Palmer’s the worst part, “which is me censoring it,” she history course, Censorship from the points out. Inquisition to the Present. Already the (The book demonstrates how censorship’s class is deep into the vexed topic of battleground is often at the margins, she “icky speech.” explains later: “Few people would defend ITake Suehiro Maruo’s Ultra-Gash Inferno nauseating pornography, yet the book contains (Creation Books, 2001), from the “erotic a protest about the postwar occupation of grotesque” (“ero guro”) genre of Japanese —the kind of political speech that can be comics. The first time she read it, Palmer says, the most important to defend.”) she was so disgusted she threw up. The next Palmer has long flowing hair; she’s day, just remembering the experience, she wearing a long flowing blue cardigan, flared threw up again. jeans with embroidered stripes down the Palmer passes the book—held shut by sides, and chunky boots. The efect is not flimsy, loose rubber bands—around the class. so much professorial as otherworldly, like a “If you want to take the rubber bands of, you guide you might seek out on a difcult and can,” she says, “but I don’t recommend it.” For frightening quest. In contrast, her coteacher anyone brave enough to look, she’s included Stuart McManus, a postdoctoral fellow at the

Illustration by Zé Otavio Zé by Illustration an additional safeguard: a sticky note over Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of

Winter 2018 / 25 Knowledge, looks banker conservative in a blue-and- f you were told that reading this book could send you white pinstripe shirt, gray slacks, and black wingtips. to Hell, would you keep reading?” The censorship class—30 students, a mix of grads I That’s the first sentence of Reading Lucretius in and undergrads—meets in an enormous classroom at the Renaissance. An award-winning novelist as well as the south end of Special Collections. Today’s assigned a historian, Palmer has managed to make her academic readings include chapters from 1984 (Harcourt Brace, book into a page-turner. 1949), the American Library Association’s “Top 100 Lucretius’ poem De rerum natura (On the Nature Banned/Challenged Books: 2000–2009,” and a blog post of Things), rediscovered in 1417, lays out the ideas of by writer Neil Gaiman that sets the tone: “Why Defend the Greek philosopher Epicurus, set in verse to make Freedom of Icky Speech?” them more appealing. From the perspective of the Palmer’s syllabus requires no papers. Instead, the Catholic Church, it promotes extremely dangerous students will create an exhibit, The History of Censorship, ideas. There’s no divine plan. The gods don’t hear to be held at Special Collections in September. Extra human prayer; they never intervene in our world. credit writing exercises include what she calls “Half and Perhaps most devastating, the soul is mortal and there Half Again”: rewrite a paper from another class, making is no afterlife. exactly the same arguments, in half as many words. Then And yet Lucretius was read. By 1600, 30 print editions cut it down by half again. of De rerum natura had been produced; more than As Ultra-Gash Inferno makes its way around the 30,000 people bought it. How did a book with such outré class (most students do not open it), Palmer places ideas achieve such wide circulation? And what did its Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent (Rinehart, readers think? 1954) on the overhead projector. A few students laugh. To find out, Palmer painstakingly analyzed readers’ The book famously blamed violent comic books for comments and other markings in 52 handwritten juvenile delinquency. manuscripts and 172 print copies. She traveled to Can fiction inspire readers to emulate poor examples? libraries in Berlin, London, Milan, Paris, and Vatican City, One student argues that it can. Suicide in artwork can among others. Where she looked at the same book. Over trigger imitation, she says: “That’s a case where I’m very and over and over again. much in favor of censorship.” In the Netflix series 13 As various commentators have pointed out over the Reasons Why, for example, the protagonist kills herself in centuries, it’s rather dry reading. “One of the things the final episode. “It’s very visual and very direct.” I rarely confess,” says Palmer, “is that despite having The discussion bounces across centuries—from the devoted years of my life to it, I really don’t like reading Spanish Inquisition to the Parents Music Resource Center, De rerum natura as much as reading what people said whose campaign in the 1980s and ’90s led to parental about it.” advisory labels on albums—and back to Seduction of the Based on the marginalia written during the 1400s Innocent. The book claimed to ofer proof that comics and 1500s, Lucretius’s earliest readers cared most about cause violence, but “Wertham manipulated, exaggerated, Greek and vocabulary, the poetry—especially and sometimes completely fabricated his very scientific- lines that were similar to other classical authors—and seeming data,” Palmer says. Its publication inspired book mentions of famous people or places. burnings across the country. Machiavelli’s copy (written in his own hand) was a “I don’t think it makes sense as an argument stark exception: his notes are clustered in the passages against censorship to say art has no effect,” a male on atomism. student points out. You have to have “respect for the Atomism explained how the world could function power of art.” without gods, laying the groundwork for atheism. It also A second male student counters that you can’t claim raised the possibility that nature could operate by its own art causes suicide: such thinking is “post hoc, ergo internal laws, an idea essential to modern science. propter hoc.” Only people who had already suicidal Most early readers breezed right past it. “The fact that thoughts would be afected. Machiavelli was exceptional for his day should surprise “You remind me of people who wanted to censor no one,” Palmer writes. Lucretius,” says Palmer. In her first book, Reading Palmer’s research belongs to a field called reception Lucretius in the Renaissance ( Press, studies, or, less commonly, transformation studies, a term 2014), she characterizes the ancient Roman poet’s ideas she prefers. “Reception implies that the object received as “proto-atheist.” is unchanged,” Palmer says, “as if the Iliad in 300 BC is But Renaissance censors were less worried about the same as the Iliad in 1200 AD and the Iliad in 1500 Lucretius than Luther, whose ideas might gain wider AD, and the same Iliad we pull of the shelf in Barnes & currency. “They thought atheism would only appeal to Noble. That just isn’t true. We find new pieces, we take people who were at risk of damnation already,” she says. pieces away, we translate, we reinterpret. And the context “It’s very parallel logic.” in which we place and use things changes.”

26 / The Core Photography by Nathan Keay “If you were told would you keep —Ada Palmer, this book could that reading reading?” send you to hell, Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance

contact lenses. complete withred cappella music.She style polyphonica about Viking myths, performs asLoki, projects includeaplay Palmer’s othercreativePalmer’s featuring Renaissance- Winter 2018 /27 Winter

Photo courtesy Ada Palmer n the wall of Palmer’s ofce in Stuart coorganized a Renaissance banquet (see The papal election Hall hangs her great-grandmother’s recipe on page 32). “It’s a form of immersive of 2016, held in O diploma. Ada Louise Wilcox, PhB 1913, recreation, after which you return refreshed to Rockefeller Chapel. studied education and went on to teach home other things that you’re doing.” economics at Northwestern. Palmer is named Her course on the Italian Renaissance, after her. Students who come to her ofce for example, includes a live-action role- hours, she says, are often gratified to learn playing game: a papal election circa 1490. “how early women attended this university She gives each student a packet about one of when they were excluded from so many.” 50 historical figures, along with each figure’s Palmer began her own career in academia background, political allies, marriage alliances, by quitting high school. At 16 she enrolled coat of arms. The students negotiate, make in Simon’s Rock College of Bard in Great alliances, trade money and titles, and compete Barrington, Massachusetts. Like the Hutchins to elect a pope, whose influence and military College of the 1940s and early 1950s, Simon’s strength determine the outcome of a war. Rock admits precocious 16-year-olds lacking If they had to memorize the material for a high school diplomas. She studied history at quiz, she says, they would struggle. But since Bryn Mawr and Harvard, earning a PhD in it’s for a game, they know it inside out within 2009, then taught at Texas A&M University. a few days. She’s run the game four times, and She’s been at UChicago since 2014. the outcome is diferent every single time. In addition to the censorship class, which A sampling of the kind of evaluations was new this fall, Palmer teaches Italian she receives: Renaissance, Renaissance Humanism, “Her lectures are like listening to someone Patronage and Culture in Renaissance Italy tell really good stories.” and Her Neighbors, and the Core course “I left the class feeling like I’d had a European Civilization I. This winter she’s religious experience.” teaching History of Skepticism. “She got rounds of applause after the first Palmer is known for teaching through and last days of class.” quirky yet studious play. “I play a lot,” “She’s literally the patron saint of the Italian says Palmer, who’s partial to board games Renaissance, Lorenzo de Medici reborn.” and historical costumes; last spring she Palmer’s driving passion is to understand Palmer Ada courtesy Photo

28 / The Core how ideas change over time. After early Because of a system of flying cars, “you obsessions with World War I and the can go anywhere in two hours. The whole Enlightenment, she settled on the Italian world is commuting distance. Socially Renaissance, a period when “ideas about speaking, that collapses the world into the science, religion, and the world which had neighborhoods of a city.” With geographic developed in the Middle Ages suddenly met nations no longer important, children choose those of the ancient world,” she writes on her which nongeographic nation (called a “hive”) website. “All at once many beliefs, scientific to join once they come of age. systems, and perceived worlds clashed, mixed, Palmer came up with the idea while living and produced an unprecedented range of at an academic institute in Florence, Italy, new ideas.” together with researchers from all over the Palmer brings the same set of world. Many of them had children, who very preoccupations to her creative work, which quickly “created their own pidgin she describes as “future historical fiction.” out of the 15 diferent they spoke.” She’s written three books in the Terra Ignota The children had connections to two, three, series: Too Like the Lightning (2016), Seven sometimes four countries. The notion of Surrenders (2017), and The Will to Battle (2017), citizenship to their country where they were all published by Tor Books. born seemed arbitrary: “Citizenship was The fact that she’s published three novels language, culture, connections, not geography.” in two years—while teaching, researching, and Contrary to the dystopian trend in recent working toward tenure—is deceptive, Palmer fantasy and science fiction, Palmer’s world says. She began writing the books in grad seems to be a utopia—but it’s underpinned school; it took years to find a publisher. by censorship. To prevent another Church In a talk at 57th Street Books last spring, War, all public talk of religion is banned. Palmer described the world she’s created. The books themselves begin with a page of The novels are set in the 25th century. In the censor’s permissions, warning the reader same way that people of the Renaissance that the book “discusses religious beliefs were fascinated by ancient Greece and Rome, of real and living persons and therefore is a the people of her imagined 25th century are particularly dangerous text that should be fascinated by the Enlightenment. approached carefully.”

Winter 2018 / 29 or the October 24 class on continental vs. British ike her Terra Ignota characters, who are not censorship practices, Palmer has brought a copy allowed to discuss religion or gender, Palmer has F of the Catholic Church’s 1948 Index Librorum L kept certain aspects of her life quiet over the years. Prohibitorum (Index of prohibited books). In her previous teaching job, she told just one colleague The index was first published in 1559; the edition that she wrote fiction. Her colleague’s advice: don’t tell she’s displaying on the overhead projector was the last. anyone else, and publish under a pseudonym, or you “Who still uses this in 1948?” someone wants won’t be taken seriously in academia. to know. By the time Palmer was interviewing at UChicago, she “Pious people,” says Palmer. had a book deal. She had not used a pseudonym. So she After the Second Vatican Council, which brought asked Tor not to make an announcement until her job far-reaching reforms to the church in the 1960s, the index search was over. was no longer produced. Nonetheless, “the Vatican still The success of those books brought her to the World maintains a list of ‘discouraged’ films,” Palmer says. “The Convention in Helsinki last August. Avatar movie made it on.” Palmer was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Today’s assigned readings include the pamphlet Best New Writer, while Too Like the Lightning was a finalist Areopagitica (1644), subtitled A Speech of Mr. John for the for Best Novel. Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the When she won the Best New Writer Award, Palmer Parlament of England. wrote in a blog post, she “mounted the stage with difculty, One student summarizes Milton’s argument: “If leaning heavily on my cane.” She hadn’t intended to, but you’re a good person, a bad book isn’t going to corrupt she gave a speech about invisible disability. you. If you’re a bad person, a good book isn’t going to “I have never discussed my invisible disability in do anything.” public before,” Palmer wrote. But sometimes, like the night “In the context of his most famous work, knowledge before the awards ceremony, “the pain sets in ferociously, of good and evil is inherent in humans,” another student too much to hide.” The cause of her chronic pain, Palmer adds. “The free exchange of ideas—good ideas and explained, is complicated: Crohn’s disease, polycystic ovary bad ideas in books—allows people to come to a greater syndrome, and other factors. understanding of good and evil.” In the same post Palmer, who was diagnosed during Palmer, who is prone to historical digressions, graduate school, explained why she self-censored for explains how itinerant pamphlet sellers—often on more than a decade. “Being public about disability foot—brought printed news and sermons to even the (especially for women) so often results in attacks from smallest hamlets. Her description is so vivid, it’s like the uglier sides of the internet, a dangerous extra stress she has traveled to Reformation England by TARDIS while I’m working hard to manage my symptoms,” she and observed such sellers personally. wrote. She also worried that it might afect her academic Books were sold as “naked pages,” she continues; you future. (Palmer was awarded tenure this past December.) had to take them to a bindery and choose the binding On her “pain days,” she can’t do anything except yourself. “Wealthy people have fancy covers. Poorer lie down. If she feels up to it, she watches Shakespeare people have simple parchment, enough to protect the DVDs. She estimates she lost 80 days to pain last pages,” she says. academic year. In her blog post Palmer lists all the “When you go into a rare books library, you can things she wanted to do, but couldn’t: promotion for her tell at a glance: there’s an aristocrat’s copy, there’s a second novel, a new CD with her folk band Sassafras, the scholar’s copy.” fourth Terra Ignota book, more academic publications, Did people who owned books read the entire thing? a more blogs. woman wants to know. Two years ago, she thought she might have to miss “Great question,” says Palmer. “No. Even as far back class to have surgery. For the first time, she told her as the 1560s, people were already complaining that students why. wealthy people fill their houses with books and never This led to a long class discussion about invisible read them.” disability, mental illness as an invisible disability, how Another woman has a related question: Did you have invisible disability is political. Afterward 12 diferent to own a book to read it? students came to her ofce hours to talk more and thank “Around universities there were book rental her for having the conversation. shops,” Palmer explains. “You were encouraged to The students’ “incredibly warm reaction” gave Palmer write notes in the margins because it increased the the strength to have similar conversations with her value for the next reader.” colleagues and department chairs. Since then, she’s told It also left a priceless written record for Palmer and her students about her disability during the first meeting other historians: an insight into what centuries-dead of every class. “It’s been a very powerful experience,” she readers were thinking about as they read. says, “beginning to talk about it openly.”

30 / The Core Images courtesy Ada Palmer of atoms. copies of The sketches onthe natura possible shapes marginalia and Examples of far leftpagedepict in Palmer’s book. in Palmer’s illustrations in , reproduced De rerum O mother. The class laughs uproariously. uproariously. laughs class The mother. her by redacted scene sex the with series, Dawn feel,”says Palmer. can act book same the sketchier power, the to closer “The Education. of Board the or teacher a than rather parent f o bya ensiveit’s done if less feel can censorshipact same the that going todoit.” felt. “Iwas like”—she shrugs. “Iknew she was with enthusiasm. the Inquisition.) out text and missing pages, courtesy of astronomy treatise that also features blacked- book willbedisplayed next toaRenaissance ripped out intheir entirety. the tiny, uneven remnants ofpages that were over the ofending lines. McManus picks at projector, have asloppy mixofwhite and black the sixthgrade.” out, half Sharpied the book,so Icould read itin ratted me out tomy mother. She half whited- Breaking Dawn “I really loved The discussion circles around the claim claim the around circles discussion The One ofthe men inthe class asks how Olivia “I’m glad itcan beput touse,” Olivia says. “It’s such aperfect example,” Palmer says (In the exhibit, Palmer explains later, the The pages, spread openonthe overhead (Little, Brown, 2008) from the Twilight Twilight the from 2008) Brown, (Little, censored text to share. It’s It’s share. to text censored a has Olivia named undergrad an class, final the 28, November n ,” Olivia explains. “But my sister Twilight and wanted toread Breaking Breaking

another profound part ofthis conversation.” “It challenges how we think about censorship.complex It’s tenderness and love?” she asks the class. Enlightenment” withhis own self-censorship. is the person who most slowed down the is done,” Palmer says. “Inasense Diderot yet. We have tobe silentuntilthe much yet, don’t criticize the Church toomuch to self-censor: “Don’t criticize the king too intellectuals of the Enlightenment, asking them cases I’ve found in the historic record.” was going tohell. It’s one ofthe most touching she says. “He didn’t want her tobesad that he weeping. “His daughter was adevout Catholic,” after the death ofhis daughter. anonymously. His work was not published until published nothing about atheism—not even sophisticated atheist ofhis time.” Yet he pieces,” Palmer says. “The most philosophically “beautiful, subtle, intimate, magnificent come. ever should Age Dark new a case driven to preserve humanity’s achievements inchief editorofthe to talk about Diderot a bit.” Denis Diderot, the notion of parental love. “In that context I wanted for your own good.” woman studentagrees. “That they’re doing it “How can we feel about that moment of Diderot also wrote letterstothe other Her voice catches unexpectedly; Palmer is Privately, he was anatheist who wrote Near the end of the class, Palmer returns to the “There’s asense ofcare withaparent,” a Encyclopédie (1751–72), was Encyclopedia Winter 2018 /31 Winter ❁