IU experts available to comment on the effects of book bans ahead of Banned Books Week
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Banned Books Week, an annual celebration of the freedom to read, is Sept. 18 to 24. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ authors.
According to a report from PEN America, more than 40% of recent book bans are the result of directives by state officials or elected lawmakers, an “unprecedented shift” from past book bans which were typically initiated by local community members. IU experts are available to comment on the history and impacts of banning books.
For more information, contact Marah Yankey at mqharbis@iu.edu or 812-856-1442.
Emily Alford
IU LibrariesEmily Alford is head of Government Information, Maps and Microform Services at the IU Libraries. She is the Federal Depository Library Program coordinator, a School of Public Health liaison librarian and a faculty affiliate with the IU Center for Rural Engagement. Across these roles, she shares her expertise as a government information and data specialist regarding local, state, federal and international governmental organizations. Alford has particular interest in providing research assistance on voting, elections and other areas of civic engagement.
Expertise
Civic engagement, voting, elections, government information, applied health sciences.
Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick
Division of Liberal ArtsJulie Goodspeed-Chadwick is IUPUI Chancellor’s Professor of English at IUPUC, IU Bicentennial Professor, affiliate faculty in women’s studies and director of the Office of Student Research at IUPUC. Her research focuses on identity politics, namely the politics inherent in identity constructions, and responses to trauma in modern and contemporary literature.
Expertise
20th-century American literature, women and literature, transatlantic modernist literature, diversity and literature, women’s studies, trauma studies.
Raymond Haberski
School of Liberal ArtsRaymond Haberski Jr. is a professor of history and director of American studies at IUPUI. He also directs the Institute for American Thought and is part of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. He is trained in 20th-century U.S. history with a focus on intellectual history.
Expertise
U.S. history, intellectual history, religious history, civil religion, war, just war theory, movies, film critics, tennis, American studies, higher education.
Steffany Maher
School of EducationExpertise
English language arts teaching grades 6-12, secondary teacher education, critical inquiry, critical youth studies, teaching young adult literature, critical inquiry circles, National Writing Project, teaching writing.
Howard Rosenbaum
Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering/Department of Information and Library Science
Howard Rosenbaum is a professor of information science in the Department of Information and Library Science in the Luddy School of Informatics and Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington. His research focuses on social informatics, ebusiness, and online communities, and he has published in a variety of information science journals and presented at the Association for Information Science & Technology, iConferences and elsewhere. He has been involved in social informatics since 1997 and works with collaborators to raise the profile of social informations in information science.
Expertise
Intellectual freedom, information access, censorship, privacy (from a social science -perspective).
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