PHIL 213 Solitary Confinement: a Philosophical Exploration

PHIL 213 Solitary Confinement: A Philosophical Exploration

Dr. Lisa Guenther

229 Furman Hall

Office Hours: Thursdays 11am-1pm

Class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:35-10:50am in CL 219

Today in the United States, between 20,000 and 100,000 inmates are being held in solitary confinement for up to 23½ hours a day in a small, windowless cell – sometimes for years on end. Many of these inmates suffer from cognitive, perceptual and emotional disorders such as anxiety, paranoia, uncontrollable trembling, confusion, insomnia, and hallucinations. Some have described their experience of solitary confinement as a form of living death; they feel as if they were “buried alive” or “living in a black hole.” As Jack Henry Abbott writes in his prison memoir: “Solitary confinement in prison can alter the ontological makeup of a stone.” Why does prolonged solitude have such a powerful effect on one’s experience of self, world, and even being? And why do we continue to practice such a form of incarceration, given the psychiatric evidence of its pathological effects?

In this class, we will explore some of the philosophical and political questions raised by solitary confinement: Why was solitary confinement first proposed as a method of incarceration in the US, and what did it hope to accomplish? How has the theory and the practice of solitary confinement changed over the past two hundred years? To what extent does the legacy of slavery and the convict lease system continue to shape incarceration patterns in the US?

Furthermore: What must subjectivity be like in order for prolonged solitary confinement to affect our capacity to think clearly and to perceive the world in a stable, coherent way? How is individual agency and personal identity supported by concrete relations with other people in a shared world? To what extent can we disentangle the effects of social deprivation and sensory deprivation in the penitentiary cell? What strategies have prisoners developed to resist the pathological effects of solitary confinement, and why do they work?

To engage with these questions, we will draw on the philosophical resources of discourse analysis (Foucault) and phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty) to interpret primary texts in the history of solitary confinement from the early penitentiary system, through the cold war, to the current supermax prison.

Required Texts:

Michel Foucault. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage, 1995. ISBN-10: 0679752552. ISBN-13: 978-0679752554

Caleb Smith. Prison and the American Imagination. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. ISBN-10: 0300171498. ISBN-13: 978-0300171495

Jack Henry Abbott. In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison. New York: Vintage, 1991. ISBN-10: 0679732373. ISBN-13: 978-0679732372

Assignments

2 Short Papers

Length: 4 pages (1200 words) each

Worth 20% each

Papers should demonstrate a critical engagement with the texts and concepts studied. Critical engagement can take many forms, but the main point is to enter into a dialogue with the text. Prompts will be posted on OAK closer to the deadline.

PLEASE state the WORD COUNT at the beginning or end of your paper.

PLEASE print DOUBLE-SIDED or on recycled paper. No cover pages!

Class Presentation

Length: 10 minutes

Worth: 20%

Choose one of the assigned texts and prepare a 10-minute class presentation outlining the text’s main arguments or ideas, responding critically to these ideas, and raising 2-3 questions for class discussion.

Final Essay

Length: 8 pages (approx. 2400 words)

Worth 30%

Prompts will be posted on OAK closer to the due date, but you are also encouraged to develop your own essay topics in consultation with me.

PLEASE state the WORD COUNT at the beginning or end of your paper.

PLEASE print DOUBLE-SIDED or on recycled paper. No cover pages!

Participation

Worth 10%

This is a discussion-based class, and so your participation is vital. Participation, however, does not necessarily mean talking a lot! It means coming to class having read the assigned texts carefully, and engaging with your fellow students in a collective effort to understand and interrogate these texts. If you do not attend class regularly, you will not be able to participate effectively in class.

Attendance will be kept every class. You are granted two unexcused absences over the semester, with deductions for poor attendance beyond that. If you have a legitimate reason for missing class, please notify me by email as soon as possible.

Please come to class having read the assigned text(s) carefully, so that you can make a positive contribution to class discussion. This course is based on the critical analysis of texts, and you cannot do well unless you read and reflect on the assigned texts, re-reading those you find most challenging. The amount of time and effort you put into reading will be reflected in your grades.

ABSOLUTELY NO CELL PHONES, INTERNET OR EMAIL IN CLASS. You cannot participate in class effectively if you are distracted by electronic devices. If I observe you texting or using your laptop in class for anything but taking notes, you will be given an unexcused absence for that day. In fact, I would strongly prefer to see no laptops in class.

Late Penalties

Late essays will be deducted 1/3 of a letter grade for every interval between classes. So, for example, if you miss a Monday due date, you will lose 1/3 of a letter grade if you hand in your paper by Wednesday. You will lose another 1/3 of a letter grade if you hand in your paper by the next Monday, and so on for up to 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, your paper will be given a grade of zero. The cut-off time for submitting papers is 5pm.

If you have a good reason (medical, family, personal, intellectual) for requesting an extension, please do so – before the due date!

Plagiarism and the Honor Code

Plagiarism includes more than just the obvious examples of copying or purchasing entire assignments. Any time you adopt an idea, phrase or passage from another source, and especially when you cut and paste information from the internet, you must be careful to acknowledge your source properly.

I take plagiarism very seriously, and I will enforce Vanderbilt’s Honor Code to the full extent. For an explanation of the code, please see http://www.vanderbilt.edu/student_handbook/Honor_System.htm.

For resources on how to cite resources properly and avoid unintentional plagiarism, please see: http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/research/Citing.shtml.

I strongly encourage you to make use of the resources at The Writing Studio: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/writing/. You can make an appointment for one-on-one consultation about writing skills in general, or get specific feedback on a draft of the paper you’re currently writing.

Schedule of Readings

Tues, Jan 10 Introduction

Thurs, Jan 12 Benjamin Rush: “An Enquiry into the Effects of Public

Punishments” (1-13)

Charles Dickens: “Philadelphia, and its Solitary Prison” in

American Notes (97-111)

Hans Christian Anderson: “The Prison Cells” in Pictures of Sweden (24-5)

Tues, Jan 17 Atul Gawande: “Hellhole” in The New Yorker (March 30, 2009): http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande

Colin Dayan: “Barbarous Confinement” in The New York Times, July 18, 2011: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/opinion/18dayan.html

(See also: Pelican Bay Hunger Strike, Prisoners’ Demands: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/the-prisoners-demands-2/)

Robert King: “Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement” in The Guardian, August 28, 2010: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/28/29-years-solitary-confinement-robert-king

Sarah Shourd: “Tortured by Solitude” in The New York Times, Nov. 6, 2011: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/opinion/sunday/in-an-iranian-prison-tortured-by-solitude.html?_r=1

Thurs, Jan 19 Film: “Solitary Confinement” (National Geographic documentary): http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/national-geographic-channel/shows/explorer-1/ngc-solitary-confinement.html

(Please watch this on your own time; I will be away at a conference.)

See also this update on the report mentioned in the film: http://solitarywatch.com/2010/11/07/controversial-colorado-study-shows-prisoners-improve-in-solitary-confinement/

Punishment as Redemption: The Early Penitentiary System

Tues, Jan 24 Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punish, “The body of the

condemned” (3-31)

Thurs, Jan 26 Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punish, “The gentle way in

punishment” (104-134)

Tues, Jan 31 Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punish, “Panopticism” (195-

230)

Thurs, Feb 2 Michel Foucault: Discipline and Punish, “Complete and austere

institutions” (231-56)

Tues, Feb 7 Caleb Smith: Prison and the American Imagination, Introduction (1-25)

Thurs, Feb 9 Caleb Smith: Prison and the American Imagination, Chapter 1, “Civil Death and Carceral Life” (27-52)

Tues, Feb 14 Caleb Smith: Prison and the American Imagination, Chapter 2, “Cadaverous Triumphs”(53-80)

Thurs, Feb 16 Caleb Smith: Prison and the American Imagination, Chapter 3, “The Meaning of Solitude” (81-112)

Tues, Feb 21 Charles Baxter, Wayne Brown, Tony Chatman-Bey, H.B. Johnson, Jr., Mark Medley, Donald Thompson, Selvyn Tillett, and John Woodland Jr. (with Drew Leder): “Live From the Panopticon: Architecture and Power Revisited.” In The New Abolitionists: (Neo) Slave Narratives and Contemporary Prison Writings (ed. Joy James, 2005)

The House That Herman Built: http://www.hermanshouse.org

Punishment as Treatment: The Cold War Penitentiary

Thurs, Feb 23 Robert J. Lifton: “Chinese Communist “Thought Reform”: Confession and Re-Education of Western Civilians” (1957), pp 626–644.

First Short Paper Due

Tues, Feb 28 John C. Lilly: “Mental Effects of Reduction of Ordinary Levels of Physical Stimuli in Intact, Healthy Persons” (1956), pp 1-8 (skim discussion on pp 10-28).

John C. Lilly and Jay T. Shurley: "Experiments in Solitude in Maximum Achievable Physical Isolation with Water Suspension of Intact Healthy Persons." (Symposium, USAF Aerospace Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, 1960), pp 238-47

Doane B.K., Mahatoo W., Heron W., Scott T.H. 1959. “Changes in Perceptual Function After Isolation” (1959), pp 210–219.

Thurs, March 1 CIA. 1963. KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual. “Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of Resistant Sources” (82-104)

Brown, Bertram, Herbert Leiderman, Bernard Kramer, David Landy and Edgar Schien. 1961. The Power to Change Behavior [Papers presented at a seminar conducted by the Bureau of Prisons at an Associate Warden Training Program in April, 1961]. Washington: Bureau of Prisons.

Gomez – “Resisting Living Death at Marion Penitentiary”

Tues, March 6 SPRING BREAK – NO CLASSES

Thurs, March 8 SPRING BREAK – NO CLASSES

Tues, March 13 Jack Henry Abbott: In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison (1-42)

Thurs, March 15 Jack Henry Abbott: In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison (42-53, 65-93, 107-23)

Monday, March 19 Michelle Alexander Lecture and Discussion at the Baptist World Center, 5:30-7pm

Extra participation points for everyone who attends!

Please read:

Michelle Alexander: “The New Jim Crow”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-alexander/the-new-jim-crow_b_454469.html