The Canisius College Library’s Banned Book Week continues with a special forum on Thursday, October 4 at 2:30 p.m. in the Library’s Instruction Room (Main Floor). This forum is free and open to the public. Students are welcome to attend as part of the Library’s Banned Book Week commemoration focused on “tolerance.”
What’s Wrong With You? – A Forum : Topics in Information, Censorship and Reason explores three topics related to access of information, censorship and reason.
Panelists include:
Daniel M. Di Landro, MLS, CA, archivist and special collections librarian at Buffalo State College, who will address issues of access, restriction and sensitivity to donor wishes related to two large archival collections at his institution. The Collection of Madeline Davis, when fully processed, will provide researchers insight into the birth of the LGBT movement and gender issues in Buffalo and western New York as reflected in a collection of assembled over more than 50 years. The Lester Glassner African American Experience Collection: Artifacts, Sheet Music, and Ephemera provides contextual insight to a collector and his process to collect a vast assortment of uniques artifacts, and other materials that capture attitude toward and promotion 19th through 20th century thought related to African-American’s.
Richard Reitsma, PhD assistant professor, department of modern languages, will present Banning Books, Trafficking and Cultural Censorship: Arizona and the Argument Against History and Diversity. He’ll examine recent controversial challenges to the Arizona and local school boards’ educational policies, their effect on Latino/Latina authors, and intellectual freedom.
Stephen Chanderbhan, PhD assistant professor, department of philosophy, will reflect on the motivations for the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Catholic Church’s list of banned books. The Index was an official element within the Church from the mid-16th century until its abolition in 1966. One of the aims of the Index was “to preserve the faith and morals of Catholics.” Chanderbhan will also touch on the monitum issued against Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and the public critique by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops against Sister Elizabeth Johnson’s book Quest for the Living God.
Submitted by Kathleen DeLaney, archvist/reference librarian
