260-312 Literature of Imprisonment: Creativity and Constraint
Time: MW 12:30-1:50 Instructor: Dr. Hollis Robbins
Place: 206C Office: Centre Street, #33
hrobbins@jhu.edu
I. Course Objectives:
This course will focus on the relationship between constraint and creativity; we will read works provoked by the experience of imprisonment, focusing particularly on the twentieth century African American prison population. We will read fictional works about life behind bars, such as James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk and metaphors of bondage. We will listen to prison blues and explore prison writings by writers who have spent time behind bars, such as Chester Himes, George Jackson (Soledad Brother), Malcolm X, Ethridge Knight, and others. We’ll watch the award-winning 1998 documentary The Farm: Life in Angola Prison. We will read works on the history of prisons (Foucault), the history of prisons in America, the emergence of literary voices from these prisons, and works of protest and prison reform. More broadly, the course is designed to explore the distinction between imprisonment as a metaphor and as a material fact, examining issues central to art and literature, such as the nature of freedom in an environment of restriction, the relationship between the state and the rebellious individual, the productive value of constraint, and the idea that an artist needs a room of one’s own: time and space to create.
II. Course Requirements:
Attendance/Class participation
Oral Presentation (10 minutes)
Two analytical papers (5-7 pages, 8-10 pages)
Final exam (IDs)
You will be required to read and be prepared to discuss all of the assignments. The schedule below indicates the date by which particular works should be read and the amount of reading to be done each day to stay current with class discussion. Bring the text to class each week. You will be required to lead class discussion by giving a substantial presentation once in the course of the semester.
You will be required to write a midterm paper and a longer final paper. I do not accept late papers unless there is a compelling reason for missing the deadline.
Attendance for this class is critical. Much of what you will learn in this course will be the result of class exercises and discussion. Discussion and debate are crucial to the learning process. You are expected not only to attend but also to participate. Three absences (excused or not) will begin to push your final grade downward.
Grade: Your grade will be calculated as follows:
Class Participation: includes attendance, presentations, possible quizzes, contributions to class discussion: 20%
Presentation: 15%.
Two papers: Midterm paper (20%), final paper (30%) Total: 50%.
Midterm Exam: 15%
Writing Policy:
All papers should be double-spaced, numbered, with your name on every page. Neatness and excellence in punctuation, spelling, and grammar should always be a goal.
All written work should be your own. This means that either: A) you are telling me what you think, or B) you are telling me what you think about what someone else thinks—which means you will tell me where you found this person’s opinion, when and where he/she expressed it, and how it is related to your own opinion. You may embrace someone else’s opinion, but you cannot pass it off as your own. This is called plagiarism and it is wrong.
A note about my grading on papers and essays:
A grade of A means you have produced a paper exemplary in almost every way. You have presented your thesis coherently, you have organized your thoughts effectively, and you have supported your argument meticulously. An A paper is also one that is excellent in style and voice or tone. And in an A paper, attention to form (spelling, punctuation, grammar, documentation) is as rigorous as it is to the content. Your work on the paper is superior.
A grade of B means you have gone beyond the minimum requirements of the assignment and have successfully balanced description with analysis. You express yourself more clearly, meaningfully, and imaginatively than in a C paper. Your work on the paper is good.
A grade of C means you have successfully completed the minimum requirements of an assignment. Your paper has no major problems of any kind, but there is still much for you to do to better your grade. Your work on the paper is fair.
A grade of D means your work is seriously deficient in some way.
A grade of F means your work has failed to meet the minimum requirements.
III. Required Texts:
H. Bruce Franklin, Ed. Prison Writing in 20th-century America.
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk
Richard Wright, Native Son.
Occasional handouts
1. Penitentiary Law of 1829, Statutes of Tennessee.
2. Charles Dickens, American Notes (1850). Chapter 7, “Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison.”
3. Tocqueville, Alexis de and G. de Beamont. On the Penitentiary System in the United States, and its Application in France. Trans. Francis Lieber. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. 1833.
IV. Schedule and Reading
Week 1 Intro & backgrounds
M Jan 12 Intro to Definitions and Concepts:
W Jan 14 “Introduction” in Prison Writing (PW), 1-18.
Foucault, from Part One, “Torture” (handout).
Week 2 History of Prisons in America
W Jan 21 Dickens, “Philadelphia and its Solitary Prison.”
Tennessee Penal Code of 1829.
Week 3 History of Prisons
M Jan 26 Tocqueville: On the Penitentiary System in the United States (handout)
Jack Henry Abbot, “from In the Belly of the Beast,” PW 189-199
W Jan 28 Foucault, Ch. 1, “The body of the condemned,” p. 1-31.
Jack London, “Pinched” and “The Pen” in PW 37-57.
Week 4 Dehumanizing and Condemned
M Feb 2 Foucault, “The gentle way of punishment,” pp. 104-131.
Malcolm X, “from Autobiography” PW 147-155
W Feb 4 Film: The Farm: Life in Angola Prison.
Week 5 Comeraderie in Prison
M Feb 9 Revisit Foucault, “The gentle way of punishment,” pp. 104-131.
George Jackson, “from Soledad Brother” PW 155-166
W Feb 11 Foucault, “Docile bodies,” pp. 135-169.
Film: Cool Hand Luke
Week 6 No Classes – Auditions – but begin If Beale Street Could Talk
Week 7 Friends on the Outside: If Beale Street Could talk
M Feb 23 Foucault, “The means of correct training,” 170-194
Beale Street to p.
W Feb 25 Beale Street to p.
Week 8
M Mar 2 Finish Beale Street
W Mar 4 Midterm Exam
Week 9 Executions in Prison
M Mar 9 Foucault, “The spectacle of the scaffold,” 32-69
W Mar 11 Jim Tulley, “A California Holiday,” PW 89-102.
Week 10 No Class: Spring Break. Begin Native Son
Week 11 Metaphorical Prison: Native Son
M Mar 23 Native Son
W Mar 25 Native Son
Week 12 Real Prison: Native Son
M Mar 30 Native Son
W Apr 1 Native Son
Week 13 Torture
M Apr 6 Jerome Washington, “Nobody’s Hoss,” PW 322-323.
W Apr 8 Dannie Martin, “A Prescription for Torture” PW 341-345
Mumia Abu-Jabal, PW 350-357
Week 14 Training and Correction
M Apr 13 Foucault, “Complete and austere institutions,” 231-256
Dannie Martin, “A Mount Everest of Time,” PW 345-349
W Apr 15 Film: The Shawshank Redemption
Week 15 Women of Prison
M Apr 20 Agnes Smedley, “Cell Mates” PW 61-73
Kate Richards O’Hare, “from Crime and Criminals” PW 73-89
W Apr 22 Patricia McConnel, “Sing Soft, Sing Loud” PW 294-306
Kim Wozencraft, “from Notes from the Country Club” 306-318
Week 16 Wrap up
M Apr 27 Jimmy Santiago Baca, “Past Present,” PW 357-365
W Apr 29 Final Paper Due
