OBOC is LAVC's common read program. Each academic year, a new book is selected, which is read throughout courses and across disciplines. The OBOC initiative cultivates opportunities for creativity, scholarship, critical thinking, and academic dialog. It creates a shared intellectual experience for students, faculty, administration and staff.
The OBOC program works to promote reading and equity in our campus community. Books are selected to support students' sense of belonging; increase successful outcomes of underperforming groups; and ensure a campus climate that supports diversity.
Book nominations are accepted year-round.
The LAVC Library has several print copies of Maus available on reserve for 4-day checkout. Visit the Library in person if you're interested in borrowing a copy. A read-aloud version of this graphic novel is also available on YouTube.
The Los Angeles Public library also has many copies of this book available for checkout.
What: Music for Political Expression - Support and Protest
When: April 19, 2:30 p.m.
Where: LAVC Music Department Recital Hall (M106)
About: A concert of “Entartete Musik” (Degenerate Music) that was banned during WWII: Composers who were targeted by the Nazi regime. More information.
What: The Armenian Diaspora: From the Genocide and World War II to Today
When: May 1, 11:30 - 1 p.m.
Where: Monarch Hall
About: A talk with Gegham Mughnetsyan Chitjian, Research Archivist at USC’s Institute of Armenian Studies. A light lunch will be served
What: Student Project Showcase
When: May 10, 12 - 4 p.m.
Where: LAVC Art Gallery
About: This popular, annual event is for any student work completed in connection to Maus in Fall 2022 or Spring 2023
The bestselling first installment of the graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). The only graphic novel to ever win the Pulitzer Prize, this is a “Banned and Challenged Books Everyone Should Read” (Variety).
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.
Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.
Though published in 1986, Maus started making headlines again in 2022 after a Tennessee school board voted unanimously to ban the book from its curriculum. Learn about the controversy and explore other Banned Books available from the LAVC Library.
Further reading on the recent book-banning controversy:
MAUS: The comics that won the Pulitzer Prize (an excerpt from "The Art Of Spiegelman"):
