2008 Woodie Awards
Celebrating fighting book bans
Karina Schroeder - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 10/1/07 Section: Metro
- Page 1 of 1
For as long as books have existed, people have banned them.
And National Banned Books week, which started on Sept. 29, is showcasing that. The week honors freedom of speech and expression, as defined by the First Amendment.
In honor of banned books, the Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., will hold an event Wednesday as a part of the 2007 Carol Spaziani Intellectual Freedom Festival, which has been taking place throughout September.
Featured panelists are Brett Gordon, a member of the Iowa City Telecommunications Commission, Trish Weathington, the program director of KWKB, and Steve Soboroff, the owner of KCJJ radio.
Nancy Baker, the top UI librarian, said that the importance of Banned Books Week is to call attention to intellectual freedom.
"Many people are surprised to see what books have ever been challenged in history," she said.
She noted that Iowa City is different from other cities.
"I would say this is true of most academic communities, that they are not quite as likely to ban [or challenge] books," she said.
In commemoration of the celebration, the UI Libraries held its own celebration on Sept. 25, when students held a Read-Out in which they publicly read selections of famous banned or challenged books. Readers were members of the Law, Media, and Current Issues class taught by UI Professor Carolyn Dyer.
While most people may think of McCarthyism and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 when they think of banning books, censorship still exists today.
In 2003, an Arkansas school district voted to restrict students' access to the Harry Potter books because some had claimed the books promoted disobedience and disrespect for authority and because of their dealings with witchcraft and wizardry. Students were required to obtain signed parental permission before checking any of the books out from the school library. The decision was overturned by the district court, which ruled it in violation of the First Amendment.
Such actions are explained by William Noble in his Bookbanning in America when he wrote, "Bookbanners see in words certain power that transforms the written page into a dangerous instrument."
In the 1940s Nazis burned "un-German" books that they found offensive to their beliefs. Depicted in numerous pictures of the time period, piles of literature were burned in what resembled funeral pyres.
Similar cases have occurred all over this country, when books hailed as classics have been challenged because of their religious, social, or sexual content. To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn all made it on the list of top-10 banned books.
E-mail DI reporter Karina Schroeder at:
Karina-Schroeder@uiowa.edu
And National Banned Books week, which started on Sept. 29, is showcasing that. The week honors freedom of speech and expression, as defined by the First Amendment.
In honor of banned books, the Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., will hold an event Wednesday as a part of the 2007 Carol Spaziani Intellectual Freedom Festival, which has been taking place throughout September.
Featured panelists are Brett Gordon, a member of the Iowa City Telecommunications Commission, Trish Weathington, the program director of KWKB, and Steve Soboroff, the owner of KCJJ radio.
Nancy Baker, the top UI librarian, said that the importance of Banned Books Week is to call attention to intellectual freedom.
"Many people are surprised to see what books have ever been challenged in history," she said.
She noted that Iowa City is different from other cities.
"I would say this is true of most academic communities, that they are not quite as likely to ban [or challenge] books," she said.
In commemoration of the celebration, the UI Libraries held its own celebration on Sept. 25, when students held a Read-Out in which they publicly read selections of famous banned or challenged books. Readers were members of the Law, Media, and Current Issues class taught by UI Professor Carolyn Dyer.
While most people may think of McCarthyism and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 when they think of banning books, censorship still exists today.
In 2003, an Arkansas school district voted to restrict students' access to the Harry Potter books because some had claimed the books promoted disobedience and disrespect for authority and because of their dealings with witchcraft and wizardry. Students were required to obtain signed parental permission before checking any of the books out from the school library. The decision was overturned by the district court, which ruled it in violation of the First Amendment.
Such actions are explained by William Noble in his Bookbanning in America when he wrote, "Bookbanners see in words certain power that transforms the written page into a dangerous instrument."
In the 1940s Nazis burned "un-German" books that they found offensive to their beliefs. Depicted in numerous pictures of the time period, piles of literature were burned in what resembled funeral pyres.
Similar cases have occurred all over this country, when books hailed as classics have been challenged because of their religious, social, or sexual content. To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn all made it on the list of top-10 banned books.
E-mail DI reporter Karina Schroeder at:
Karina-Schroeder@uiowa.edu
Be the first to comment on this story