Feminist and Queer Prison Studies

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Antiracist and decolonial feminist scholars and activists have long understood that sites of confinement--such as the prison, the asylum, and the detention center--produce and police genders and sexualities. This seminar introduces students to feminist, queer, and trans work in the field of critical prison studies, exploring gender and sexuality at shifting intersections with racism, ableism, militarism, capitalism, and the state. Our readings will integrate the work of free-world academics with theory, research, art, and personal narrative produced by prisoners and survivors. While we will read and discuss a variety of texts, our study will center Black, im/migrant, and Indigenous feminist scholarship and organizing in movements for abolition and transformative justice. Class activities will emphasize collaboration and skill-building. Required Texts include: Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?;Sarah Haley, No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity; Mariame Kaba, We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice; Andrea Ritchie: Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color; Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography