Critical Social Inquiry 0222 - Politics of the Prison State

This course explores the history and politics of gender and sexuality in relation to the racial politics of prisons and the police. By engaging recent work in queer studies, feminist studies, transgender studies, and critical prison studies, we will consider how prisons and police have shaped the making and remaking of race, gender, and sexuality from slavery and conquest to the contemporary period. We will examine how police and prisons have regulated the body, identity, and populations, and how larger social, political, and cultural changes connect to these processes. While we will focus on the prison itself, we will also think of policing in a more expansive way by analyzing the racialized regulation of gender and sexuality on the plantation, in the colony, at the border, in the welfare office, and in the hospital, among other spaces, historical periods, and places.

Power, Community and Social Justice Multiple Cultural Perspectives Writing and Research Students are expected to spend at least six to eight hours a week of preparation and work outside of class time.