Professor Kathy Newman (CMU) Talk, "Banning Books Means Banning Children's Literature"

September 16, 2019 - 4:30pm to 6:00pm

Dr. Kathy Newman from CMU will give a talk, "Banning Books Means Banning Children's Literature," on September 16, 2019 from 4:30-6:00 in CL 501.

The talk stems from a course called “Banned Books,” which Dr. Newman has been teaching in the CMU English department for the last 10 years. She has learned from this class that books in the US are most often banned and/or challenged by parents/adults ostensibly on behalf of children, and the target is often children’s and/or young adult literature. The issue of censorship and banning books is an issue for the field of Children’s Literature, and, ultimately, it’s an issue of power. In this talk Dr. Newman will feature a few recent incidents in which Children’s literature was challenged, towards some suggestions about how we can think about (and combat) book banning in a difficult time.