Cameron’s book banning expo
By Brittney Payette
Managing Editor
At 9:30 p.m. on Sept. 21, Assistant Professor and Director of CompositionCarie Schneider hosted a book banning expo in Nance Boyer room 2005.
The event featured students in Cameron’s Introduction to Literary Studies class who created different works of art to express their feelings about book banning. Students made posters, videos and did art projects to convey how they felt about book banning.
Schneider said she wanted to have this event in honor of the American Library Association’s (ALA) banned book week.
“The American library association has been holding banned books week for 40 years,” Schneider said. “They keep track of books that have been challenged or banned or attempted to be removed or actually removed from libraries and classrooms across the country.”
Schneider said that it was important for her students to form their own opinions about book banning.
“I wanted to ask students to sort of develop an opinion about why reading matters, why books matter,” Schneider said. “I wanted to really let them have a chance to, you know, choose their own path. It’s just something that I think a lot of students need to know more about.”
Schneider said that she has read and enjoyed many books on the banned books list.
“One of the ones that’s like top on this list very frequently is Toni Morrison’s Beloved,” She said, “which I think is an amazing book. I read it in high school. I was like blown away by the power of writing and the power of how you can construct a novel to make people have strong feelings.”
Some of the books that are on ALA’s 100 most banned books include Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Bad Kitty (series) by Nick Bruel, 1984 by George Orwell, Captain Underpants (series) by Dav Pilkey, Goosebumps (series) by R.L. Stine, and Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.
Sophomore English-Art major Marty Hoyte said she wanted to create something that offered new perspectives on the world and allowed her to convey how she feels about book banning.
“It’s not a good idea to ban any sort of source of information,” Hoyte said. “Whether it’s good or bad.”
Freshman English Baryn Wallis said that he thought the expo event was cool.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Wallis said. “It’s cool to put my thoughts on the white of the poster and draw it out rather than write it.”
Wallis also said that book banning is not beneficial in the long run.
“If anything, banning books only brings more attention to them,” Wallis said.
Junior Foreign Language major Torie Ortiz-Jones gave a speech at the books banning week expo, and a poster she helped create was also featured.
“I think it was great,” Ortiz-Jones said. “Dr. Schneider, this is the first time she’s ever put this on, and I think that she needs to do it again.”
Junior English major Nicholas Spurlin said he created a Minecraft machinima for this event and that he felt confident in his project. He said that the project made him think about the implications of book banning.
“Should you really ban a book because of its subject matter,” Spurlin asked. “How do you apply validity to that?”
For the full ALA 100 most banned and challenged book list, go to the website at https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade2019.
For more information about future events that the English, Communication, and Foreign Language department is holding, contact the department chair, Dr. Von Underwood, at vonu@cameron.edu.
