SISP 125
TechnoPrisons: Corrections, Technology, and Society
Thursdays 1:20-4:10pm
004 Allbritton Hall
Fall 2016
Instructor: Professor Tony Hatch (a.k.a. Professor Hatch)
Office:214 Allbritton (up on the “Veranda”)
Office Hours:Wednesdays 1:00-2:30pm and by appointment
Email:
Phone:860-685-3991
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The United States currently incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country, most of them are members of disadvantaged social groups. Prisons are also an old human institution and are present in nearly every country on the earth. In the United States, their permanence and ubiquity complicate efforts at meaningful prison reform or prison abolition. How does our government practically accomplish mass incarceration? ThisWesleyan First Year Seminar examines prisons as technologies and the role that specific technologies play in the U.S. prison system. To say that prisons are technologies means that prisons operate as an architectural structure that is designed to hold people captive within enclosed physical spaces. At the same time, prisons are the location for multiple kinds of social closure made possible through technological systems includingsurveillance systems, media representations, biomedical technologies, classification and administrative technologies, and military technologies. This seminar introduces basic concepts within science and technology studies, sociology, and criminologyto investigate how prison happens.
As we are in participating in a “Living and Learning”First Year Seminar, we will meet for most of our class times in Allbritton 004, but we will also meet for some classes in the lounge for Butterfield A. The central purpose of the Living and Learning Seminar is to foster intellectual discussions and collaborative learning and we will work to do just that that throughout our course. A second purpose of the Living and Learning Seminar is to build a strong collegial community and social relationships in your first semester in college. My sincere hope is that I can help facilitate both our intellectual growth and learning on the one hand and healthy sociality and civility on the other. If we work toward both purposes together, we will have served each other well.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
1.Comprehend core ideas in science and technologies studies, sociology, and criminology
2.Apply core ideas from these fields to the case of prisons and carceral technologies
3.Evaluate the centrality of technologies to mass incarceration
COURSE READINGS
We will read texts from leading scholars of the U.S. prison system and science and technology studies. If you see this designation (Available @ Wesleyan Online Library), that means the full text of book is available through Wesleyan’s Online Library, which you can access by searching for the book on the main library webpage. Other readings in the course calendar below are going to be available in PDF form on our course Moodle page.
Michelle Brown. 2009. The Culture of Punishment: Prison, Society, and Spectacle. New York: New York University Press. 978-0814791004(Available @ Wesleyan Online Library)
Miroslava Chávez-García. 2012. States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of California's Juvenile Justice System. Berkeley: University of California Press.978-0520271722(Available @ Wesleyan Online Library)
James Kilgore. 2015. Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time. New York: The New Press. 978-1620970676
Austin Sarat. 2014. Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty. Stanford: Stanford Law Books. 978-0804789165(Available @ Wesleyan Online Library)
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING
This seminar uses a student directed format where we learn from and teach each other. You will be evaluated in part on your contributions to making the class successful for yourself and others. This is a reading and writing intensive course where you will have to read and write about a large quantity of material in a relatively short period of time. As a Wesleyan First Year Seminar, our focus will be on college-level writing within a set of field-specific norms. This is also a course that values you as a person and respects your experience; share your brilliance and experience with everyone else! Based on these emphases, your grade is calculated out of 500 points distributed across four elements:
Class Participation10 percent 50 points
Short Reflection Essays 30 percent 150 points
Prison Media Project30 percent 150 points
Final Research Paper30 percent 150 points
Class Participation (10 percent of your grade @ 50 pts)
I expect you to attend every class, on time, prepared to engage fully in your own education. This is a dialogic course where we will engage in substantive open group discussion with daily prompting and questioning from me. I expect for you to be an active participant in every moment of every class. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we want to hear you talk all the time; sometimes, the most active way to engage is to listen and create space for other people to speak. Be present for others—you never know when someone else’s idea might change your life. Be mindful of the collective space we share. I will evaluate your participation according to the following criteria.
Exemplary = up to 50 points. This means you have attended every class possible (with reasonable exceptions for illness, athletics, verifiable emergencies, etc.), openly demonstrate outstanding preparedness for each class, and make significant contributions to our collective learning.
Good = up to 40 points. This means you have attended most classes, demonstrate consistent preparation for each class, and make substantive contributions to our collective leaning.
Fair = up to 30 points. This means you have missed about 3-4 classes, are generally prepared for each class, and make marginal contributions to our collective learning.
Poor = up to 20 points. This means you are chronically late and/or absent from class, are rarely prepared for each class, and either make minimal contributions to our learning or take away from our learning.
Short Reflection Essays (30 percent of your grade @ 150 pts)
You will write three (3) short reflection essays (50 points per paper; 3 full pages each). Reflections essays are personal thought statementswritten in the first person that synthesizeinformation across our course readings, lectures, and discussions. Your job is to engage directly with information you found especially compelling, problematic, or inspiring. Write to signal your understanding of course content by identifying and critically assessing patterns in the content, themes, and questions that cut across our course. Consider the following kinds of questions: What is your response to the information you have read, heard, or discussed? How does your response connect (or not) with what I, our authors, or your peers have said in writing or in class? How can you elaborate on what your response means to you and to others who read your writing?
As you make decisions about what to reflect on, consider that you will have the option of incorporating text from your reflections into your final research paper. Aside from these considerations, each reflection must do the following:
a)Substantively describe and interrogate (e.g., raise and answer questions about) multiple course readings from within that part of the course
b)Connect your interrogation to multiple lectures and/or in-class discussions from within that part of the course
c)Incorporate and examine your own thoughts, interpretations, feelings, beliefs, practices on the issues raised in the readings, lectures, and discussions.
d)Be three (3) full pages in length. Each paper needs to be double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, and 12-point font with your name, course name, response number, and the date typed single-spaced at the top of the page. Please include footnotes/endnotes with complete citations when appropriate.
Reflection Essay Due Dates: Your essays are dueon the first day of the next part of the class. For example, a reflection essay based on Part I of the course is due on Tuesday, October 6. Reflection papers written about Part III of the course are due on the last day of classes (with no exceptions). Please print out and turn in your response papers at the beginning of the class. Late reflection essays will be penalized at 5 points per day (with day one starting at 4:10pm on Thursday).
Prison Media Project (30 percent of your grade @ 150 points)
Throughout Part II of our course, we will collectively analyze a range of mediathrough which prisons are represented in American culture. Stated differently, we will watch and co-analyze scripted and “reality” television shows, films, and documentaries that present prisons, prison technologies, and prison life to the public. Taking stock of the ways in which prisons are re-presented to the American public is critical for understanding the political and technoscientific work that prisons do within our society.
Your Prison Media Project assignment has two parts. First, you are to work independently of me in small groups (size and structure to be determined) to identify, view, and analyzethe role of technologies in a reasonable set of prison media. By reasonable set, I mean that I want you to select, say, 2 different documentaries or films or 4 episodes of a television show. Watch them together. Pay close attention to a technology or technologies that you collectively find interesting, compelling, problematic, useful, unethical. Debate what you see. Take notes on what you see. Create an analytic/interpretive structure for what you think the technologies and their users are doing in the prison. What do these technologies mean for the characters, story, or the audience?
The second part of your assignment is to create and present a 25-minute multimedia oral presentation (intended for our class) basedon your collective analysis and interpretation of the media you have chosen. Each of the members of your group is expected to speak in the oral presentation. Embed clips, images, or audio of the media into your presentation and make it engaging for your audience. You are free to use PowerPoint, YouTube or any media you like for your presentation. Create a script/notes for you to use so that you’re not improvising as you present. Your goal is to help us understand (and critique?) the work the technologies are doing in the prison. You will submit your presentation and script for evaluation. You will present your work in class on Thursday, December 1.
Final Analytic Research Essay(30 percent of your grade @ 150 points)
You will write one ten (10) page analytic research essaythat uses course concepts tointerrogateyour choice of prison technologies (i.e., cultural/media, biotechnology/health, design/architecture). You are free to expand on a specific technology or set of technologies we have explored in class or select one we have not explored. The choice is yours.
This paper is ananalytic essay which means that you will use a concept(s) derived from one of our course readings to analyze your prison technology. As we move through the course, we will be sure to define and explain key concepts that you may find useful and illuminating in this regard. We will also demonstrate what it means to analyze the meaning of technology.
This paper is also a researchessaywhich means you will present, describe, and interpretsome form of primary or second evidence about your technology in light of the concept(s) you derived from the readings. Primary evidence is information you collect yourself; secondary evidence is information someone else has collected. This is an essay which means that you are expected to make an argument which further means that I want you to take and defend/support a position about your prison technology drawing on the evidence you’ve collected.
Part of your research paper will revise and build on at least one of your short reflection essays. We will discuss this process in greater depth as the semester unfolds.
You will be required to meet with me face-to-face to review at least one draft or your final research essay. You are always welcome to visit me during office hours to review drafts of any of your written work.
Proposal Due Date: A one (1) page proposal for the essay is due on Thursday, November 10that informs me of your early ideas for the paper. Bring your proposal to class. This proposal is worth 10 points out of 150 points for the final research paper. I prefer clearly articulated and well conceived proposals to thin and muddled proposals. Minimally, you need to identify the concept(s) you have chosen and describe your chosen prison technology in the proposal. Write the proposal in the first person voice (e.g., In this essay, I will…) and pretend to give yourself and your reader clear directions as to what you are going to do/say in the essay. The proposal is intended to help you write your own paper.
Final Paper Due Date: 12:00pm on Wednesday, December 14th in Moodle.
Grading Scale
PercentPointsGrade
97-100 485-500A+
93-96465-484A
90-92450-464A-
87-89435-449B+
83-86415-434B
80-82400-414B-
77-79385-399C+
73-76365-384C
70-72350-364C-
67-69335-349D+
63-66315-334D
60-63300-314D-
57-59285-299F+
53-56265-284F
50-52250-264F-
47-49235-249E+
44-46220-234E
40-43200-219E-
below 40below 200F
OTHER IMPORTANT COURSE INFORMATION
This course requires a high level of student preparedness and endurance. I do not expect this to be an easy course, but I do expect it to be an engaging, enriching, and, if you’re open to this sort of thing, an empowering one. Please review the following information, as it is essential to your success. You are responsible for all of the information that follows—please consult the syllabus before you email me with questions about course policies.
DISCLAIMER
This syllabus provides a general plan for the course: some deviations may be necessary.
HOW TO CONTACT ME
Please email me () with any questions or concerns about the class, but please note that I only read and respond to student emails during normal business hours (9-5, M-F) except in rare cases of actual emergency. Please allow 1-2 days for an email response from me for non-urgent issues. Be sure to review the syllabus carefully before emailing me about course policies.
I would love to see you during my office hours on Wednesdays 1:00-2:30pm and by appointment. However, please have respect for the fact that I’m a writer and work in my office everyday. If you come to my office unannounced, I will politely ask you to come on Wednesday or to email me for an appointment.
Extra CrediT
I reserve the right to offer extra credit during the semester at my discretion. I also reserve the right not to offer extra credit.
Late Work
Generally speaking, I will not hunt you down asking you to make up your work—it is your responsibility to stay on top of your work and progress in the class. The assignments in this seminar are such that you should turn them in whether or not you attend class on any particular day. Late reflection essays will be penalized at 5 points per day (starting at 1:10pm on Thursday). I retain the right to offer and/or deny make-ups based on my assessment of your situation and any relevant documentation.
USING MOodle
I will make regular use of Moodle’s “News” feature to communicate with the entire class. It is your responsibility to monitor Moodle regularly for any important announcements!
Technology Use in class
You are permitted to use laptops during class for the purposes of active research, writing, and note taking. While in class, your computer is a public technology. We are in class for roughly 3hours day, once a week—this is exceptionally valuable (and expensive) time in our lives and I’d rather not waste it with you being in another digital “places” while you are with us. Using devices during class is disruptive to the class and disrespectful to me personally. Be digitally unavailable to your people during class time (that’s what I do). Be on notice: I favor public humiliation if you violate this ethic. However, if you must make or take an EMERGENCY phone call during class, please step outside to do so.
Academic DISHONESTY IS SERIOUS
I treat all forms of academic honesty with the utmost seriousness and strongly encourage you to comply with Wesleyan’s Honor Code which you can review within the student handbook (
Violations of the Honor Code may result in an F in the course and possible academic and disciplinary action. All violations will be reported without exception.
DisabilitY RESOURCES
Wesleyan University is committed to ensuring that all qualified students with disabilities are afforded an equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from its programs and services.To receive accommodations, a student must have a documented disability as defined by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, and provide documentation of the disability. Since accommodations may require early planning and generally are not provided retroactively, please contact Disability Resources as soon as possible. If you believe that you might need accommodations for a disability, please contact Dean Patey in Disability Resources, located in North College, Room 021, or call 860/685-5581 for an appointment to discuss your needs and the process for requesting accommodations.