The vastness of American prison
literature testifies to many ills in American society. Among these are the
Puritan need for old-testament punitive retribution, including the notion that
solitary confinement would bring about penitence (yes, that’s where the term
“penitentiary” originated.) Race and racism in the penal system, the “war on
drugs” the privatization of prisons, the irony that the “land of the free” has the largest prison
population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate are
among the issues we will explore.
Students
should purchase the following:
Caryl Chessman, Cell 2455, Death Row: A Condemned Man's Own Story (1948, rpt. 2006)
Jack Henry Abbott, In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from
Prison (1991)
Fauziya Kassindja, Do They Hear You When You Cry (1998)
James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in
Black America (2017)
Ashley C. Ford, Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir (2021)
The
following are useful supplementary materials:
https://www.criminaljusticedegreehub.com/literary-works-penned-in-prison/
https://nicic.gov/history-corrections-america
https://www.statista.com/topics/1717/prisoners-in-the-united-states/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/an-artist-on-how-he-survived-the-chain-gang
Sam Cooke, “Chain Gang”: https://youtu.be/PRyDlVOE86U
https://www.vera.org/blog/dispatches-from-germany/what-german-prisons-do-differently
Requirements: Attend all classes do
all readings, engage in class discussions. All students will give a brief (5
minute) talk interpreting—not summarizing—a scene, a theme, or a character. All
students will write a brief (one page) exploration of a passage from the
readings. Put the passage into your own words and explain what’s interesting
about it.
All students: My personal
preference, if we meet in person, is for all of us to be (like me) fully
vaccinated. The choice is yours, but my chronic condition puts me in
life-threatening danger if I am exposed to the Coronavirus. Thank you for
considering this request.