EVER SINCE ITS publication a century ago, ”The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” has divided readers–from the partisans (like Hemingway) who consider it the Great American Novel to those who simply see it as a racist broadside, unfit for impressionable minds and school library shelves (largely because of Mark Twain`s portrayal of ”Nigger Jim”).
The latest installment in this perennial controversy will come on Monday when the Goodman Theater sponsors a panel discussion, ”Racism, Censorship and Huckleberry Finn,” timed not only to the ”Huck Finn” centennial but to the 150th anniversary of Twain`s birth. The program also is designed to draw attention to the Organic Theater`s 10th anniversary revival of ”Huckleberry Finn,” which opens at the Goodman Friday and runs through March 3.
With Mary Ann Childers of WLS-TV`s ”Eyewitness News” as moderator, the panel will include Waukegan Ald. Robert Evans, who was responsible for having ”Huck Finn” removed from the city high schools` required reading lists;
Lenny Kleinfeld, a playwright and drama critic for the Reader and Chicago magazine; Judith Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation; Meshach Taylor, an actor who is re-creating his original role as Jim in the Organic production; and John H. Wallace, a former assistant principal for the Mark Twain School in Virginia, who has written a ”nonracist” version of Twain`s classic.
The discussion begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Goodman Studio Theater, 200 S. Columbus Dr. Tickets are $3 (free to Goodman series subscribers) and are available at the theater box office or by calling 443-3800.
— Possibly Israel`s best known writer, Amos Oz will make appearances next week at two Jewish community centers. Oz, whose books include novels
(”Where the Jackals Howl,” ”My Michael,” and ”A Perfect Peace”) as well as nonfiction (”In the Land of Israel”), will speak at the Mayer Kaplan center, 5050 Church St., Skokie, at 8 p.m. Sunday. His topic: ”The Writers of Israel and the Government of Israel: Prophecy, Partnership and Paradox.”
At 8 p.m. Monday, Oz will speak on ”Zionist Dreams and Israeli Realities” at the Florence G. Heller Jewish Community Center, 524 W. Melrose Ave., Chicago. Tickets to the lectures are $4-5; for information call 761-9100.
— Indian Poet A.K. Ramanujan will be the guest on ”Writing/Chicago” at 11 a.m. Monday on WBEZ-FM (91.5). Future editions of the show, hosted by Gerald Nemanic, also include: Yuri Rasovksy of the National Radio Theater on Feb. 4; ” `Da Region`: Writers of Northwest Indiana” on Feb. 11; Joseph Parisi of Poetry magazine on Feb. 18; and Robert Remini, American Book Award- winning biographer of Andrew Jackson on Feb. 25.
Ramanujan, who has written four volumes of poetry in English and translated several from Indian, also will appear at 8 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Poetry Center at the School of the Art Institute. Reading with him will be Ted Kooser, author of ”Sure Signs: New and Collected Poetry.”
— Novelist Larry Heinemann, whose ”Close Quarters” won a Society of Midland Authors Award in 1977, will preview his work-in-progress at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the University of Illinois at Chicago`s ”Winter Reading Series.” Other guests in the free series–which is at Chicago Circle Center, 750 S. Halsted St.–are: Poet Dave Etter on Feb. 13; and poets Tom Raworth and Ingrid Wendt on Feb. 20.
