Winchester Academy hosts program with retired teacher

Phair

Pat Phair will present “Banned and Censored: The Tampering of Ideas in American Literature: at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 14, at the Waupaca Area Public Library.

Hosted by Winchester Academy, the program is free and open to the public.

Phair will take a historical look at the beginnings of censorship and the public banning of books and ideas from the American colonial days to the first half of the 20th century.

Iconic American authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Tennessee Williams, Kurt Vonnegut, Harper Lee, Ray Bradbury and Maurice Sendak are but a few of the hundreds of writers whose works have been removed from shelves in public institutions.

The standards for “acceptable” ideas and language have been long and contentious with a myriad of contributors. This program will look at the origins of book-banning and the power brokers who set standards of cultural acceptance in the United States.

Phair earned his bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and his master’s degree with a creative writing emphasis from Minnesota State University.

He taught high school English for 38 years, teaching composition as well as 19th and 20th century American authors.

Phair’s program is in support of the Waupaca Area Public Library’s Banned Book Week Sept. 24 through Oct. 1.

Cookies and coffee are served at 6 p.m. and the program begins promptly at 6:30 p.m.

Winchester Academy program expenses are funded through sponsors and tax-deductible donations. Pat Phair’s program is sponsored by Nyles and Genny Eskritt.

For more information about Winchester Academy, check winchesteracademywaupaca.org, follow the group on Facebook, or contact Executive Director Ann Buerger Linden at 715-258-2927 or [email protected]