ENG 445 - The Prison: A History in Lit

This seminar investigates the origins of the prison in America to better understand the ongoing crisis of mass incarceration in the United States. We will read the earliest writings of incarcerated people in England and America alongside depictions of the prison in a variety of literary genres, while paying special attention to early modern archives and the problems they present for our understanding of the prison today. Along the way, we will survey theories of the prison and abolition from Plato to Angela Davis.