AMST 305 Captivity, Carcerality, Unfreedom: Abolitionist Rhetorics
This course examines forms of unfreedom from the American colonial era to the present and traces connections and divergences between early and contemporary abolitionism in the U.S. Through literature, film and media, and critical theory, we will investigate the ambition of racial, gender, and other forms of justice and abolition democracy. The main premise of this course is that abolition encompasses long and varied processes that continue to occur in the U.S. With this guiding premise, we consider abolition in the context of policing, of the prison, and of punishment more broadly.