Assistant professor of English Nora Gilbert's dual interests in Victorian novels and early Hollywood films drew her to write the book Better Left Unsaid: Victorian Novels, Hays Code Films and the Benefits of Censorship (Stanford University Press).

The book argues that the novels written in 19th-century England and films produced under the Production Code of 1930 — which regulated that films could not show crimes, sex and explicit language — were stimulated by the very forces meant to restrain them.

"I wanted to explain what made these texts so enjoyable to me as a reader and viewer," she says, "and I came to realize that many of the prohibitions placed on the artists who created the texts actually caused them to be subtler, smarter and more subversive."