The following article was previously published on The Flat Hat’s website during the week of Oct. 9. However, due to an unforeseen technological glitch, it was removed from the website for a period of time and was re-uploaded today, Nov. 6.
Wednesday, Oct. 4, the College of William and Mary’s English department hosted its inaugural “Banned Books Jam,” a reading session dedicated to various banned books at the Martha Wren Briggs Amphitheater at Lake Matoaka.
The event took place in honor of Banned Books Week, an annual event celebrating titles banned in libraries, schools and prisons across the country. Book banning continues to remain a highly relevant and contested issue in America today.
Chair of the English department Brett Wilson opened the event with a speech about the increasing number of challenged titles in our country.
“Challenges keep going up,” Wilson said. “By far the greatest share of those challenges zeroed in on LGBTQ, Black and Indigenous works and creators, as though these people and these ideas are inherently divisive, as though readers need to be protected against accidentally learning about their pasts, presents and futures, their lives, their tribulations and their joy.”
Wilson, along with Sara E. Nance Professor of English Melanie Dawson and other College English professors, organized the event to highlight titles that are currently banned in libraries across the country, have historically been banned and titles that have been the subject of heavy discourse in the past few years. In his speech, Wilson remarked on Banned Books Week itself.
“Banned Books Week was started by the American Library Association to celebrate the freedom to read,” Wilson said.
Following this opening speech, members of the College’s faculty, staff and student body read selections from various banned books, including “1984” by George Orwell, the children’s book “And Tango Makes Three” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell and “Gender Queer: A Memoir,” by Maia Kobabe, which is currently banned in 15 states.
Adjunct professor of English Maddy LaTurner presented a selection from “George,” a book later retitled “Melissa,” by author Alex Gino. The book features a young, transgender main character.
“There’s voices being silenced, and we are that voice today,” LaTurner said. “We get to participate in the stories that don’t get told very often.”
Many members of the College community turned out in support of the event, either to present readings or to simply listen to the presentations.
Attendee Cate Oken ’27 reflected on the current state of book-banning in the United States.
“I really just don’t think that taking away the access of books is something that this country should be supporting,” Oken said. “It actively goes against what this country tells us is right.”
Julia Greiner ’27 presented the selection from “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s book that has been banned from some states for featuring a same-sex penguin couple. Greiner commented on the importance of events like the Book Banning Jam and their ability to bring attention to prominent issues.
“I also think they are a sort of a semi-defiant way of proclaiming that these books are banned but we’re going to read them anyway,” Greiner said. “I’m still kind of sad that it’s banned, because it was just a really sweet book when I read it as a kid.”
Book banning is a particularly relevant issue in Virginia. According to a 2022 Richmond Times-Dispatch article, dozens of school districts across the state have banned a number of titles in recent years, including “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, “Dear White America” by Tim Wise and Kobabe’s “Gender Queer.” Events like the Banned Books Jam hosted by the College are taking place throughout both the state and country in direct protest of these measures.
Closing his speech, Wilson emphasized the personal importance of reading, especially the reading of banned books, as an English professor.
“To teach university English, as I and some of my friends here are fortunate to do, means relying on the curiosity and the empathy that books teach their readers,” Wilson said. “They teach us to feel, and sometimes, too, the terrors in these books teach us how to survive. And beyond that, the rebellions, small and large, quiet and raucous, they teach us to wage. And so today, we dare to come together, and, in deceptively simple, but always still risky, fashion — we dare to read.”
