Mailer’s Resistance—A Little Lesson in Free Speech

Authors

  • Ronald K. L. Collins University of Washington School of Law Author

Keywords:

First Amendment and free speech, dissent and rebellion, cultural criticism, Left Conservatism, artistic freedom, public intellectual, literary dissent

Abstract

A law professor discusses Mailer’s long-term interest in the principles and practice of free speech.

Author Biography

  • Ronald K. L. Collins, University of Washington School of Law

    Ronald K. L. Collins is the Harold S. Shefelman scholar at the University of Washington School of Law. He has authored, co-authored and edited several books including ones on Lenny Bruce, Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Floyd Abrams, among others. His last two books, both with David Skover, were On Dissent: Its Meaning in America (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and When Money Speaks: The McCutcheon Case, Campaign Finance Law & The First Amendment (Top Five Books, 2014). In 2012, the American Society of Legal Writers awarded him a Scribes Book Award for We must not be Afraid to be Free (Oxford University Press, 2011). He is the recipient of the Supreme Court Fellows Alumni Association’s Administration of Justice Award (February 2011). In 2003, Collins and others successfully petitioned the governor of New York to posthumously pardon Lenny Bruce. The following year he received the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award. In the spring of 2010, he was a Norman Mailer Fellow in Provincetown, where he worked on a novel and collection of forthcoming short stories.

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Published

2026-10-10

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 1 (2014): Future Bound

Section

Articles