First Year Seminar 191HFA29 - FYS-American Prison Literature

American prisons have produced an extraordinary body of literature with a unique historical significance and cultural influence. This course introduces students to a representative sample of the poetry, memoirs, essays and novels written by incarcerated people about the prison experience. Some of the authors we will read are quite famous while others are virtually unknown. Reading about prison from an incarcerated person's point of view will help students explore the meanings of imprisonment. Each week we will read an author and learn what was unique about the time and place of their confinement. In this way, the course will also provide a more complete picture of the American prison system and a sense of the chronological, political, and institutional development of the U.S. carceral state.

First-year (R1ST)