Published: August 30, 2019

UT Celebrates Banned Books Week With Three Free Events

The University of Tampa Macdonald-Kelce Library is sponsoring a series of events to honor Banned Books Weeks (Sept. 22-28). The week is a celebration of the ongoing struggle against censorship.

The events are free, open to the public and family friendly. They include:

• A reading by UT English Associate Professor Kacy Tillman from her newly published book Stripped and Script: Loyalist Women Writers of the American Revolution, on Thursday, Sept. 12, at 6 p.m. in Macdonald-Kelce Library. In her book, Tillman argues that women’s letters and journals are the key to recovering the voices of loyalist women, as these private writings were used as vehicles for public engagement.
• A lecture on “Censorship After the So-Called End of Obscenity” by Jordan Carroll, UT assistant professor of English and Writing, on Wednesday, Sept. 25, at 6 p.m. in the Macdonald-Kelce Library. This talk will show that obscenity as a concept continues to inform the policies of major print and e-book distributors, which often invoke the law to restrict literary erotica and other sexually explicit materials.
• A performance by local artists, called Drag Queen Story Hour, on Saturday, Sept. 28, at 1 p.m. in the Scarfone/Hartley Gallery on campus. Kenya M. Black, Miss St. Pete Pride and Miss Naples Pride 2019, and Samaya Sinsation, Miss Florida USofA Diva!, will read from a few of the many challenged and censored children’s books that deal with alternate political and religious viewpoints, LGBTQIA+ issues, and other messages that may address difficult themes such as racism, violence and otherness.

For more information, contact Sarah Juliet Lauro, UT assistant professor of hemispheric literature, at  slauro@ut.edu or (813) 257-3322.