Students and professors gathered outside the Nebraskan Student Union last week to read excerpts from books seen as controversial. The open mic was held to celebrate Banned Books Week and draw attention to the harms of censorship.
The event was created three years ago, and its success has kept it going ever since.
“It was all thrown together at the last minute, but quite well-attended, so we decided to do it again and make it an annual collaboration between all these different campus entities,” said Annarose Steinke, faculty adviser of Sigma Tau Delta.
In 2023, the advisory council for UNK’s chapter of the American Democracy Project and the students of UNK’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta wanted to sponsor something on campus. Kenny Mitchell, one of the past presidents of Sigma Tau Delta, had the idea of reading excerpts from banned and challenged books aloud in the outdoor area on campus.
Banned Books Week is an annual international awareness campaign started by the American Library Association. It celebrates the freedom to read and shares the importance of free and open access to information. The campaign highlights the harm of censorship by drawing attention to books that have been challenged or banned in schools, libraries and bookstores.
One of the open mic readers, Abby Trantham, the most recent president of Sigma Tau Delta, began the event by reading a children’s book called “Book Comes Home” by Rob Sanders.
“I wanted to begin with a shorter story about book banning as an intro to our event,” Trantham said. “The book gave a perspective of being enjoyed by little kids, then losing its home at the library because it got banned.”
Other stories like “Virginia Woolf,” “Wide Sargasso Sea,” “Ulysses,” and “Kindred” were read. Volunteers from modern languages attended the event for those who needed translation for the books.
To add onto the momentum from last year, the UNK American Democracy Project, Calvin T. Ryan Library and UNK English also co-sponsored the film screening of “The Great Gatsby” at the World Theatre after the open mic. The movie was free to anyone who came, and free popcorn and soda were supplied.
“‘The Great Gatsby’ is a film that has been challenged in the past and is also a classic,” Steinke said. “It’s the 100th anniversary of the book’s publishing this year, and the acts of sexuality, drinking and denigration of the American dream are some of the reasons it’s getting challenged.”
