Free People Read Freely: Literacy, Inclusion, and Democracy

Opening Keynote Conversation: Reading Freely

This opening keynote conversation with two award-winning authors, moderated by the current Urbana poet laureate, will set the stage for a two-day exploration of literacy, inclusion, and democracy. Clint Smith and George M. Johnson will consider questions central to “reading freely,” such as what is the role of books in a democratic society? What is the importance of being able to create freely? What happens when books represent the full range of human experience? What happens when they don’t?

Clint Smith, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning book How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

George M. Johnson, award-winning author of the Young Adult memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue

Moderator: Ruby Mendenhall, Kathryn Lee Baynes Dallenbach Professor in Liberal Arts and Sciences and Urbana Poet Laureate

PANEL: Literary Cultures of Inclusion and Exclusion

This session explores literary arbiters, producers, and communities to interrogate how reading becomes a cultural battleground around racialization. Tamara Bhalla examines white female celebrity book club culture to reveal how nominally empathetic reading practices normalize white middle-class comfort while erasing critical experiences of difference. Esmeralda Arrizon-Palomera rereads writings by undocumented authors to consider what counts as literature and how that matters. Charlesia McKinney unpacks the empowering, connective tissues of Black feminist literacies.

Tamara Bhalla, associate professor of English, University of Maryland Baltimore County

Esmeralda Arrizón-Palomera, assistant professor of English, University of Illinois at Chicago

Charlesia McKinney, assistant professor of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Moderator: Laurie Matheson, director, University of Illinois Press

Roundtable: Freedom to Read

Rebecca Ginsburg, director of the Education Justice Project of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, moderates a conversation with alumni of the EJP around what access to books and education has meant to them. The panelists will also discuss a 2019 episode of more than 200 books being removed from the shelves of the EJP library at Danville Correctional Center.

Alumni of Education Justice Project

Moderator: Rebecca Ginsburg, director of the Education Justice Project, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Opening Keynote: The American Dream Through Our Books

Most readers are familiar with the national headlines describing attacks on Freedom of Speech, especially in Red States. Professor Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, provides a firsthand account from the ground in Texas, where a wave of Censorship Culture has led to restrictive laws and policies at every level of government and education. These tactics are making it harder and harder for community members to gain access to books through the traditional bastions of intellectual freedom such as schools and libraries. The attack on intellectual freedom is no longer simply about book bans, these approaches are creating book deserts across all demographic lines. Diaz illustrates this through his experience as a Mexican American youth who gained access to the American Dream through books handed to him by teachers and librarians. He makes the case that today, in red states like Texas, access to the American Dream through books and education is in danger, and these attacks are spreading. However, he also posits a path forward. In 2012, the Librotraficante Caravan smuggled back into Tucson books from the Mexican American Studies curriculum outlawed by the Arizona legislature to fuel a counter-movement that would support the students who overturned that unjust law. Today, Librotraficantes are taking their book smuggling skills to new levels, accelerating community cultural capital through technology that will unite champions of free speech across the state lines. His call to action is clear: It is time for Blue States to unite with Red States to make it rain libros in book deserts.

Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, is the author of The Aztec Love God and The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital.

PANEL: Education and Access

This session offers a thought-provoking conversation about culturally responsive pedagogy, the racial politics of literacy, and structures and counter structures that shape systems of inclusion and exclusion in the educational sphere. Centering the Odyssey Projects at Illinois Humanities and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Humanities without Walls project at the Humanities Research Institute, UIUC, this session takes a broad look at community access to education, pathways for exchange between the University and surrounding communities, and systemic structures that shape opportunities and obstacles.

Rebecca Amato, director of Odyssey project for adult education, Illinois Humanities

Augustus Wood, assistant professor in the School of Labor & Employment Relations, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Antoinette Burton, Maybelle Leland Swanlund Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign

PANEL: Book Banning and Libraries

Intellectual freedom is the right of unrestricted access to information and ideas. U.S. library workers ensure that Free People Read Freely in our democracy by upholding the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read Statement, and the Freedom to View Statement. However, we are seeing attacks on intellectual freedom continue to escalate, not only through the rise of local material challenges by individuals and groups, but also through political pressure and through adverse state legislation that limits the work of librarians and causes fear for their job security and even criminal complaints.

Learn why being an advocate for intellectual freedom is important, how to become an advocate, where to find information on support from ALA, and the importance of building community support when facing these challenges.

Emily Knox, Associate Professor. School of Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Barbara Jones, Research Affiliate, School of Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, former Director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, and Executive Director of the Freedom to Read Foundation, American Library Association

Joyce McIntosh, Assistant Program Director, Freedom to Read Foundation, American Library Association

Closing Keynote: Rapporteur

A synthesizing reflection on the themes of the Symposium through the lens of privacy.

Lisa Hinchliffe, professor/coordinator for Research Professional Development, in the University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a leading voice and researcher on privacy in libraries.

Wrap-up

Anne Craig, Senior Director of CARLI

Laurie Matheson, director of University of Illinois Press