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Humanities
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Humanities in Prison
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Humanities in Prison

A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787). This special issue belongs to the section "Transdisciplinary Humanities".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2020) | Viewed by 24326

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Susan Derwin

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
Interests: public humanities; prison education; moral injury; Holocaust studies; narrative and healing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of the journal Humanities, “Humanities in Prison,” will bring together essays about the teaching and study of the humanities in juvenile detention centers and state and federal prisons. If we understand the disciplines of the humanities as dedicated to studying the manifold forms and meanings of human experience, and the teaching of the humanities as effectively participating in the cultivation of human capacities and social potentialities, what challenges do educators and incarcerated students face when the humanities are introduced into institutions predicated on a culture of dehumanization and deindividuation? How can the humanities be taught in carceral spaces in which agentive social bonds and community formations are deemed transgressive and in need of suppression? With these questions in mind, we invite submissions for essays about humanities courses, on-site or through correspondence programs, from educators and students who have participated in such programs.  Essays that discuss the value of teaching and studying humanities in prison are welcome, as are submissions that address issues arising while developing curriculum and pedagogical strategies and navigating institutional and administrative requirements; that make explicit the educational outlook informing course design and implementation; that explore the potential dissonance between the socially transformative objectives of critical pedagogies and the exercise of penal power, and strategies for managing that dissonance; and that reflect upon the ways in which the necessary compliance with the dictates of prison administrations may create unintended alignments between educators and administrators that complicate pedagogies committed to restorative justice or to the abolition of prisons.

Prof. Susan Derwin
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Humanities is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • prison education
  • humanities teaching
  • restorative justice
  • humanities and social justice
  • public humanities

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 223 KiB  
Article
‘Study Is Like the Heaven’s Glorious Sun’—Learning through Shakespeare for Men Convicted of Sexual Offences
by Rowan Mackenzie
Humanities 2021, 10(1), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/h10010016 - 18 Jan 2021
Viewed by 2218
Abstract
Emergency Shakespeare is a collaboratively owned theatre company based in an English prison for men convicted of sexual offences. It is the first permanent theatre company of its kind with this population. This article explores the ways in which Shakespeare is used as [...] Read more.
Emergency Shakespeare is a collaboratively owned theatre company based in an English prison for men convicted of sexual offences. It is the first permanent theatre company of its kind with this population. This article explores the ways in which Shakespeare is used as a way of developing transferable skills such as self-confidence, resilience, teamwork and negotiation with a group of people whom society will stigmatise for their convictions. Constructivist educational methodologies are employed by the Artistic Director to encourage those involved to develop their own sense of autonomy and ownership of the artistic work created. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Humanities in Prison)
16 pages, 1634 KiB  
Article
Banned Books behind Bars: Prototyping a Data Repository to Combat Arbitrary Censorship Practices in U.S. Prisons
by Kate Cauley
Humanities 2020, 9(4), 131; https://doi.org/10.3390/h9040131 - 30 Oct 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6071
Abstract
“Banned Books Behind Bars” is a social justice project that aims to shed light on the complex problem of information access in prison and to explore potential prototypes for possible solutions to some of these obstacles, in particular access to books and printed [...] Read more.
“Banned Books Behind Bars” is a social justice project that aims to shed light on the complex problem of information access in prison and to explore potential prototypes for possible solutions to some of these obstacles, in particular access to books and printed information. The United States is home to five percent of the world’s population but a staggering twenty-five percent of the world’s total prisoners. For many incarcerated individuals, access to information is a struggle: censorship, book banning, and lack of adequate library facilities or collections are common. Over the course of conducting preliminary research, this project evolved through the research process of ideation. Through the participatory action research method, qualitative interviews with volunteers from banned books organizations helped to identify potential digital tools meant to aid in the fight against the First Amendment violations that incarcerated individuals face daily. Furthermore, the interviews clarified that the first step toward creating an impactful digital project involves converting various forms of unstructured data, including newspaper articles, prison censorship forms, and state published banned book lists, into structured data. Through this discovery, “Banned Books Behind Bars” became an endeavor to standardize practices of data aggregation amongst banned books organizations throughout the country. Gathering concrete data about the practice of banning books within prisons requires an elevated level of transparency. Incarcerated individuals, their families, and prison reform activists need a platform for reporting data on censorship practices, and, ultimately, for bringing awareness to the arbitrary application of censorship guidelines within the complex world of incarceration. The final prototype is a digital repository, created with Airtable software, which offers authoritative dataset consolidation for activists and organizations working to deliver books to prisoners. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Humanities in Prison)
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14 pages, 266 KiB  
Article
Radical Togetherness: African-American Literature and Abolition Pedagogy at Parchman and Beyond
by Patrick Elliot Alexander
Humanities 2020, 9(2), 49; https://doi.org/10.3390/h9020049 - 4 Jun 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3866
Abstract
This article makes the case that the student-centered learning paradigm that I have aimed to establish at Parchman/Mississippi State Penitentiary as a member of a college-in-prison program represents a prison abolition pedagogy that builds on Martin Luther King and Angela Y. Davis’s coalitional [...] Read more.
This article makes the case that the student-centered learning paradigm that I have aimed to establish at Parchman/Mississippi State Penitentiary as a member of a college-in-prison program represents a prison abolition pedagogy that builds on Martin Luther King and Angela Y. Davis’s coalitional models of abolition work. Drawing from Davis’s abolition-framed conception of teaching in jails and prisons as expressed in her autobiography and her critical prison studies text Are Prisons Obsolete?, I argue that the learning environments that I create collaboratively with students at Parchman similarly respond to incarcerated students’ institution-specific concerns and African-American literary interests in ways that lessen, if only temporarily, the social isolation and educational deprivation that they routinely experience in Mississippi’s plantation-style state penitentiary. Moreover, I am interested in the far-reaching implications of what I have theorized elsewhere as “abolition pedagogy”—a way of teaching that exposes and opposes the educational deprivation, under-resourced and understaffed learning environments, and overtly militarized classrooms that precede and accompany too many incarcerations. As such, this article also focuses on my experience of teaching about imprisonment in African-American literature courses at the University of Mississippi at the same time that I have taught classes at Parchman that honor the African-American literary interests of imprisoned students there. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Humanities in Prison)
14 pages, 234 KiB  
Article
The Value of Teaching Critical Race Theory in Prison Spaces: Centering Students’ Voices in Pedagogy
by Amos J. Lee, Michael Harrell, Miguel Villarreal and Douglas White
Humanities 2020, 9(2), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/h9020041 - 18 May 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4143
Abstract
This paper seeks to address the value of a humanities-based education, specifically focusing on a critical race theory course taught within a prison classroom. The perspectives shared are from three incarcerated students as well as their course instructor regarding the continued debate over [...] Read more.
This paper seeks to address the value of a humanities-based education, specifically focusing on a critical race theory course taught within a prison classroom. The perspectives shared are from three incarcerated students as well as their course instructor regarding the continued debate over whether vocational or academic courses are more beneficial in prison spaces. The case for vocational training has always been supported. Yet, the value of academic courses for incarcerated students, particularly within the humanities, is still questioned. Thus, this paper nuances and explains the value of a humanities-based course within a carceral setting. The voices and experiences of the three incarcerated co-authors are centered in providing the rationale for what courses like critical race theory can offer them besides just a basic focus on rehabilitation or recidivism. From their experiences with course material and discussions, a case is made that the intellectual and personal agency gained from humanity-based courses are both meaningful and relevant for incarcerated students. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Humanities in Prison)
24 pages, 260 KiB  
Article
From Apprentice to Master: Casting Men to Play Shakespeare’s Women in Prison
by Jenna Dreier
Humanities 2019, 8(3), 123; https://doi.org/10.3390/h8030123 - 15 Jul 2019
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3513
Abstract
My research investigates the growing phenomenon of Prison Shakespeare—a rapidly expanding community of prison arts programs in which ensembles of men or women who are incarcerated work with outside facilitators to stage performances of Shakespeare. This article is drawn from my first-hand research [...] Read more.
My research investigates the growing phenomenon of Prison Shakespeare—a rapidly expanding community of prison arts programs in which ensembles of men or women who are incarcerated work with outside facilitators to stage performances of Shakespeare. This article is drawn from my first-hand research on Jonathan Shailor’s Shakespeare Prison Project, a program for men who are currently incarcerated at Racine Correctional Institution in Wisconsin. This article is based on my observations of two Shakespeare Prison Project (SPP) rehearsals, their 2017 performance of The Merchant of Venice, and focus groups that I conducted with fifteen members of the ensemble. This article focuses on casting practices and explores the ethical paradox that arises within the hypermasculine environment of men’s prisons, where men cast to play women’s roles face a heightened risk of violence, and yet, where creating positive representations of women is of paramount importance for disrupting the violent misogyny demanded by that hypermasculine environment. Setting SPP in relation to other programs for men, I demonstrate how certain casting practices risk perpetuating toxic masculinities, while others demonstrate the potential to foster alternative masculinities. Based on the insights offered by participants, I argue further that this process is contingent upon the ensemble’s authorization of those alternative masculinities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Humanities in Prison)
10 pages, 211 KiB  
Article
Out of Time: Accomplices in Post-Carceral World-Building
by Benjamin J. Hall, Rhiannon M. Cates and Vicki L. Reitenauer
Humanities 2019, 8(2), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/h8020064 - 28 Mar 2019
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2536
Abstract
An article in which a faculty member, a university staff member and former student, and a currently incarcerated student and teaching assistant collaboratively examine their experiences as co-teachers and co-learners in a humanities-based prison classroom, and as co-authors of the article itself. Fostered [...] Read more.
An article in which a faculty member, a university staff member and former student, and a currently incarcerated student and teaching assistant collaboratively examine their experiences as co-teachers and co-learners in a humanities-based prison classroom, and as co-authors of the article itself. Fostered by the faculty member’s pedagogical approach and design of the course, the authors pose that critical practices of writing and learning are dynamic sites of imagination and collaboration, and in turn, avenues by which informed and intentional futures can be enacted. Locating their practice and experience of partnership within a prison, the authors enter their co-created and individual narratives into a discussion of the liberatory potentiality of written and collaborative “world-building” to identify, resist, and replace mechanisms of harm and oppression, effectively bringing a post-carceral world into being. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Humanities in Prison)
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