Geographies of Prejudice: Self-Narration and Radical Teaching in the Prison

Abstract

51 M days, my walk to class takes me across the university’s wellmanicured quad. I pass the hundredyear-old trees, the ubiquitous Frisbeetossing undergraduates, and the numerous reminders of Abraham Lincoln’s legacy. Each fall semester brings with it the sound of hopeful laughter, the sight of nervous freshmen, and the feeling of expectancy— meeting new friends, balancing studies and socialization, graduating and moving into the uncertain “real world.” This semester, however, my walk lacks this festive blend of joie de vivre and youthful debauchery. In its place, I hear the ominous slamming of steel doors, see the wary gaze of jaded guards, and feel the looming presence of four gun towers. To reach my classroom in this mediumhigh security prison, I must pass through more than a dozen locked doors, cross the bizarrely quad-like courtyard with its razor wire and irregular lines of closely guarded inmates, and enter the education wing, a small space of learning by which my university is transported into the prison. Each of these strikingly different—yet similarly institutional—spaces calls for a radical Geographies of Prejudice: Self-Narration and Radical Teaching in the Prison