Tag: reading

January 23, 2023 English Corner Faculty Voices

Dr. Ellen Arnold on Banned Book Club: “The best thing we can do is keep reading the books.”

photo of Ellen Arnold

Coastal Carolina University’s Banned Book Club will hold its first meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 25, at 4 pm in the Bryan Information Commons atrium. Copies of the book, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, will be available, and refreshments will be provided. The event will feature a panel of speakers: Anna Mukamal, CCU assistant professor of digital culture and design; Meredith Ritchie, Horry County Schools librarian; and Loren Mixon, CCU Outreach Librarian. Sponsored by English and DCD programs within the Department of English, the event is funded through CCU’s Quality Enhancement Plan.

Ellen Arnold, senior lecturer in Coastal Carolina University’s English department, said the idea for a banned book club began as a conversation among a few English and Digital Culture and Design faculty members.

“It was a small idea,” said Arnold. “We wanted to do something together–an activity, a meeting–and at the same time, the numbers of bans on books were increasing, so we thought of a banned book club. It’s a place to just sit down and talk about books.”

At its very root, banning books is undemocratic because it silences a voice.

Dr. Ellen Arnold

After arranging a banned books read-out during the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week in September 2022, Arnold realized how pertinent the freedom to read is to faculty, staff, and students across campus. “Over 70 people attended and over 20 volunteered to read,” said Arnold. “I was blown away by the number of people who wanted to get involved.”

Attendees of this event were invited to vote for the reading group’s first book, selecting the graphic novel Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. “I was delighted that they chose [Gender Queer] because it was the most banned book in 2021,” said Arnold. “When we talk about banning books and silencing voices, it’s more likely those are going to be certain kinds of voices – the ones that are already less likely to be heard in books.”

Arnold notes the importance of diversity in literature, especially books for children and young adults. “It’s important for underrepresented voices to have mirrors; for everyone to see themselves in what they read,” said Arnold, “but it’s just as crucial for [readers] to see windows into the experiences of other people who aren’t like them. It can change people fundamentally by developing that sense of empathy that’s so important, the very thing that makes us human.”

“At its very root, banning books is undemocratic because it silences a voice,” said Arnold. “It’s important to learn what books are being banned and why, to share ideas about how we can make those books available, and to explore how we can speak out against their restriction. The best thing we can do is just keep reading the books.”

See more CCU creative and scholarly responses to contemporary trends in book banning:

Sarah Laiola: “A Rapid-Fire Overview of Data and Trends as Reported by Pen America”

Anna Mukamal: “Visualizing Book Banning Trends 2021-22”

DCD student interns: “DCD Visualizes Book Banning in the USA”

September 20, 2022 English Corner Faculty Voices

Looking Beyond Ourselves: For Dan Albergotti, poetry is a gateway to navigating the wonder and chaos of our world

To Dan Albergotti, professor of poetry in Coastal Carolina University’s Department of English, poetry is a way to see our world through a different lens, to make connections from the past to the present, and to understand the capacities and limitations of human life. 

“I remember reading poems when I was a teenager for English classes and feeling like I was discovering something there,” said Albergotti. “It didn’t feel like I was studying something ancient. I felt like I was getting insight through the poem into the life of a human being that happened a long time before I was alive, and yet I recognized it.” Like time capsules, poetry can capture a snapshot of history on a page, transcending the limits of verbal communication over time. 

In his most recent chapbook, Circa MMXX , Albergotti considers the year of chaos, panic, and political violence that was 2020. He puts into verse his thoughts concerning the world and humanity during that year and how it connects across our cosmic past.

“It’s got stuff about the pandemic in it. It’s got stuff about the very violent ideological politics of the time—the destruction of a lot of democratic norms over four years from 2016 to 2020,” said Albergotti. “So the poems are very topical and informed by a moment, but I’m always trying to find a way in them to see beyond that, to see a larger relevance, to connect it to something beyond the moment.”

Drawing inspiration from various poets, Albergotti shows within Circa MMXX how the past tends to reinvent and reconnect itself to our present lives through poetry. For example, Philip Larkin’s “MCMXIV” [1914] inspired the last poem of Albergotti’s chapbook, “MMXX.”

Albergotti notes that in remembering the thousands of lives lost during World War I, “Larkin’s poem ends, ‘Never such innocence again.’ And the idea behind it is that after such a cataclysmic event, no one could be innocent to the world again,” said Albergotti. In “MMXX,” Albergotti makes a similar connection, using two men fishing as a metaphor. “The last two lines are, ‘The fish drifts back toward the hook, no longer afraid, such innocence, ever again,’” said Albergotti. “The idea of going back towards the hook and not heeding your fear, or not really understanding the danger you’re putting yourself in, is that other kind of innocence which is ignorance. It’s like saying, ‘What have we learned? Here we are100 years since the flu epidemic that killed a whole lot of Americans and people worldwide, and here we are again100 years later.’ We just forget. We let it seep out of our consciousness, and we don’t prepare.”

In writing about timely topics within this collection, Albergotti hopes to challenge his readers to view the events of 2020 differently and to view poetry as a way to take control over the chaos of life.

“There’s this one thing that Robert Frost said about poetry that stuck with me,” said Albergotti. “He said, ‘It’s a way of taking life by the throat and not letting life get away with skirting around you. You take it by the throat and say, “This is real. This is it.”’”

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