Punishment in the U.S.: Prisons and the Social Imagination*
Prisons dominate the U.S. as the quintessential form of punishment. Criticized almost from their inception 250 years ago, prisons have proven resilient and reinventive in scope and scale and have captured the social imagination of people trying to reform or subvert them. Through media such as historical texts, fiction, poetry, memoir, podcasts, documentary, visual art and findings from empirical research, we will explore the historical and contemporary meaning of prisons. Students will create empirical and creative projects that explore prison as an entrenched social artifact and contested form of social control.