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In this course we examine the themes and discourses raised in texts written by people while being incarcerated in the U.S. prison system. Among the issues we discuss are political imprisonment, ‘race-’ and gender-specific prison experiences, writing as a practice of social resistance and literacy as well as prison as a material and mental space. The course’s guiding question will be how the written accounts can be related to the respective conditions of ‘outside’ society (e.g. social, political, economic, spatial) and to what extent they indicate changes in the prison system throughout the 20th and early 21st century. We will consider texts by both prominent figures and authors, such as Martin Luther King Jr., Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Jack Abbott, as well as by less known ones whose works have either been self-published or appeared in prison journals.
Reading: A reader will be made available at the “Sprintout” Copy Shop, Georgenstraße, S-Bahn Bogen 190.
Requirements: Each student is required to give a presentation and organize the session’s discussion in class.
Please register for this class with an email to Kristina.Graaff@metropolitanstudies.de
(please note the two ‘a’ and two ‘f’ in last name).
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