300851 Critical Prison Studies (S) (WiSe 2025/2026)

This seminar introduces students to a growing interdisciplinary field that interrogates prisons and incarceration not as neutral responses to crime, but as deeply political institutions embedded in wider relations of power, inequality, and social control. Drawing on sociology, history, geography, feminist theory, and critical race studies, this perspective shifts attention from individual criminalised acts toward the systems and structures that organise punishment.

At the heart of the field lies a set of critical questions: What purposes do prisons actually serve in society? How are they connected to histories of colonialism, racism, and economic inequality? And what alternatives might exist beyond the carceral state? In exploring these questions, students will engage with central debates on mass incarceration, the prison-industrial complex, racialised forms of punishment, and the growing influence of abolitionist and transformative justice movements.

The course introduces influential thinkers who have shaped these debates. Michel Foucault’s analysis of discipline and punishment provides a foundational theoretical entry point. Angela Y. Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore have articulated abolitionist critiques and examined the political economy of prisons, while Michelle Alexander has highlighted the racialised dynamics of mass incarceration in the United States. Loïc Wacquant has connected penal expansion to neoliberal transformations of the welfare state. More recent contributions, such as those of Mariame Kaba, Beth E. Richie, Dylan Rodríguez, and Julia Chinyere Oparah, expand the conversation to feminist, decolonial, and transnational dimensions.

The seminar is structured around weekly in-person discussions, in which students collaboratively analyse and debate the texts. Coursework can take multiple forms to support creative and critical engagement: reflective essays, alternative formats such as zines or podcasts, or serving as a discussion leader for a seminar session. A few sessions are allocated to self-directed study, providing dedicated time for students to develop and refine their projects.

Learning objectives:

1. Develop a critical understanding of the social, political, and economic dimensions of prisons and incarceration.

2. Apply interdisciplinary perspectives to analyse how race, gender, class, and colonial histories intersect with carceral systems.

3. Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex ideas about incarceration creatively and collaboratively through written, oral, or multimedia formats.

By combining critical theory, empirical analysis, and creative coursework, the seminar equips students to both understand and challenge contemporary carceral practices, fostering analytical skills and reflective engagement with questions of social justice and transformation.

Bibliography

Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York, NY: The New Press.

Davis, A. Y. (2003). Are prisons obsolete? New York, NY: Seven Stories Press.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. (Original work published 1975)

Gilmore, R. W. (2007). Golden Gulag: Prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing California. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Kaba, M. (2021). We do this ’til we free us: Abolitionist organizing and transforming justice. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.

Richie, B. E. (2012). Arrested justice: Black women, violence, and America’s prison nation. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Rodríguez, D. (2006). Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Sudbury, J. (Oparah, J. C.) (2014). Global lockdown: Race, gender, and the prison-industrial complex. New York, NY: Routledge.

Wacquant, L. (2009). Punishing the poor: The neoliberal government of social insecurity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.