University of Chicago Appoints First Banned Books Scholar to Research Censorship Impact
The University of Chicago Library has appointed Dulcey Hunter as its first banned books scholar. Hunter, an English language arts educator with over two decades of experience teaching middle and high school students in Florida, will dedicate the academic year to developing a pedagogy framework. This framework aims to help teachers understand why narratives depicting difficult life experiences and painful truths are often censored. Her research will explore the targeting of these narratives and their implications for classrooms and teacher preparation, with the goal of equipping educators to teach banned books with a trauma-informed approach. This initiative follows Chicago's establishment of 'Book Sanctuaries' in 2022 and Illinois' 2023 law preventing grant funding from libraries that do not adopt the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights.
