Join us at 12:45 p.m. for pizza! Space is limited – Reserve your seat now! RSVP Required 

Join the University Library, Department of Journalism, Pride Center, and Queer Studies Program for the 12th Annual Banned Books Readout with Pizza! CSUN Journalism Professor David Blumenkrantz’s J480 History of American News Media class will give dramatic readings. Keynote speaker, Rubén Martínez will speak on The Art of Memory: Writing Ourselves Back into History. Browse ALA’s 2023 list of banned books, on the theme “Freed Between the Lines.”

Rubén Martínez is a writer, teacher and performer. He holds the Fletcher Jones Chair in Literature and Writing at Loyola Marymount and serves the English, Chicana/o and Latina/Latino Studies and Journalism departments. He is the author of several books, including Desert America: A Journey Across Our Most Divided Landscape and Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail. He is also the co-creator of Little Central America, 1984, a theatrical performance about the lives and times of the Sanctuary Movement, which has been staged at sites of major Central American communities (Los Angeles, Houston, Washington DC and, in late 2024, the San Francisco Bay Area).