PMA 1134

FWS: Poetics of Incarceration

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

The number of American prisons grows each year—with alarming ties to racism. As seen, for instance, in the HBO productions of Oz and Orange is the New Black, and events at Abu Ghraib, as well as numerous other recent and historic prison narratives, prisons (and prison metaphors and similes) drive our understanding of crime, our legitimization of U.S. citizenship, and our comprehension of racial and class identities. How can we articulate how prison performs as a social symbol? Drawing on historical and theoretical texts as well as present day media, we will explore how prison as reality and "prison as metaphor" permeate our thoughts, our speech, and stage, film, and literary representations. We will work to synthesize, and perhaps  shift, our individual and group perceptions of a life under siege in the shadow of the racist prison wall.

When Offered Fall.

Satisfies Requirement First-Year Writing Seminar.

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