120691 PS Proseminar Cultural and Media Studies (2017S)

This proseminar examines what sociologist Mike Davis has famously called the "prison industrial complex" in the U.S. that has emerged since the 1980s, as correctional facilities have been increasingly privatized into for-profit corporations. In this class, we will ask how cultural texts ranging from fiction to non-fiction and theory, TV, film, music, and art, have critically responded to this development since the 1990s. We will look at Native American, African American, and women's specific articulations of the prison experience in various media, from life writing and criticism to film, TV, and music, and the course will train you to use appropriate methodologies to analyze these texts.

Methods: single work, pair and group work, panel discussions, lecture elements, feedback