Dante and Mass Incarceration

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course explores the relationship between justice and mercy at the intersection of theology, literature, and mass incarceration. This interdisciplinary encounter aims to be mutually illuminating. Whereas theological reflection is often employed as an interpretive lens for diagnosing the injustice of mass incarceration, this course also asks: in what ways might mass incarceration equip us in turn to critique and re-imagine the historical limits and failures of theological reflection? One text that is central to this encounter is Dante Alighieri’s Comedy. Strikingly, it is the same poet who defines hell explicitly in carceral terms as a ‘blind prison’ (Inferno, 10. 58–59; Purgatorio, 22. 103) who garners praise, not least by Pope Francis himself, as a ‘prophet of hope’ uniquely situated to narrate how the infinite mercy of God meets fallen humanity. Together, we will investigate this charged ambiguity between carceral despair and prophetic hope as present in, and via paired readings of, the Comedy and key texts addressing mass incarceration (Michelle Alexander, Dwayne Betts, Angela Davis, Mariame Kaba, Vincent Lloyd, Reuben Jonathan Miller, Andrew Skotnicki, et al.), with the goal ultimately of understanding the evolution(s) of justice as variously punitive, restorative, transformative, and authorial.