College in Prison
235 pages, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
Hardcover
Release Date:01 Feb 2017
ISBN:9780813584126
College in Prison
Reading in an Age of Mass Incarceration
Rutgers University Press
“A compelling, deeply moving, and urgently important book.” —Martha Naussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, University of Chicago, bestselling author
“Makes a convincing ‘case for college in prison’ ... carefully documenting the great many benefits that its graduates receive.... At the same time, remind[s] us how far our higher-education system has strayed from the humanistic ideals at the heart of the Bard prison project.” —The New York Review of Books
“Karpowitz moves between scholarly examinations and novelistic narrative recreations of his classes that allow the students’ voices (albeit filtered) to be heard…These stories provide a fresh representation of the imprisoned, highlighting their heterogeneity and humanity and convincing the reader to fight against ‘the well-meaning but insidious bigotry of low expectations.’” —Publishers Weekly
“[Karpowitz] shows pedagogical passion in his account of teaching (and learning from) imprisoned men and women, via discussions of Nietzsche, Crime and Punishment, James Baldwin and the U.S. Constitution’s silence on slavery.” —Times Higher Education
This book explores the ethical and political problems that arise when the opportunity to go to college is offered inside contemporary American prisons. Dramatic scenes from the classroom are woven together with the policy questions they provoke, based on the author’s nearly two decades of work with the Bard Prison Initiative—a remarkable example of academic excellence achieved inside high-security prisons across the United States. The rigor of how students learn, and the careers they go on to pursue once released, force us to rethink our beliefs about who is in prison, reimagine the way forward out of mass incarceration, and renew our faith in the relevance of liberal learning.
“Makes a convincing ‘case for college in prison’ ... carefully documenting the great many benefits that its graduates receive.... At the same time, remind[s] us how far our higher-education system has strayed from the humanistic ideals at the heart of the Bard prison project.” —The New York Review of Books
“Karpowitz moves between scholarly examinations and novelistic narrative recreations of his classes that allow the students’ voices (albeit filtered) to be heard…These stories provide a fresh representation of the imprisoned, highlighting their heterogeneity and humanity and convincing the reader to fight against ‘the well-meaning but insidious bigotry of low expectations.’” —Publishers Weekly
“[Karpowitz] shows pedagogical passion in his account of teaching (and learning from) imprisoned men and women, via discussions of Nietzsche, Crime and Punishment, James Baldwin and the U.S. Constitution’s silence on slavery.” —Times Higher Education
This book explores the ethical and political problems that arise when the opportunity to go to college is offered inside contemporary American prisons. Dramatic scenes from the classroom are woven together with the policy questions they provoke, based on the author’s nearly two decades of work with the Bard Prison Initiative—a remarkable example of academic excellence achieved inside high-security prisons across the United States. The rigor of how students learn, and the careers they go on to pursue once released, force us to rethink our beliefs about who is in prison, reimagine the way forward out of mass incarceration, and renew our faith in the relevance of liberal learning.
Makes a convincing 'case for college in prison' ... carefully documenting the great many benefits that its graduates receive.... At the same time, remind[s] us how far our higher-education system has strayed from the humanistic ideals at the heart of the Bard prison project.
Karpowitz moves between scholarly examinations and novelistic narrative recreations of his classes that allow the students' voices (albeit filtered) to be heard ... These stories provide a fresh representation of the imprisoned, highlighting their heterogeneity and humanity and convincing the reader to fight against 'the well-meaning but insidious bigotry of low expectations.'
[Karpowitz] shows pedagogical passion in his account of teaching (and learning from) imprisoned men and women, via discussions of Nietzsche, Crime and Punishment, James Baldwin and the US Constitution’s silence on slavery.
A must-read for any educator or anyone interested in better understanding the transcendental power of higher education.
If you seek inspiration in these depressing times, if you need one iota of decency to keep you going, if you despair that Donald Trump's lack of humility will permeate every aspect of our culture, search no further. Read Daniel Karpowitz's stirring commitment to higher education in prisons.
From its first gripping anecdote to its concluding reflections about inequality, College in Prison is a compelling, deeply moving, and urgently important book. Daniel Karpowitz makes a powerful argument for real liberal education (not therapy) in prisons, and he challenges all of us who sit in elite institutions to do much more for non-elite students. In the process, he offers an unforgettable account of what a real liberal education is and how it interacts with our flawed society.
Drawing on more than a decade of work with the Bard Prison Initiative, Daniel Karpowitz gives us a thoughtful and timely perspective on mass incarceration in America, and the promise of a liberal arts education for those behind bars. College in Prison should be required reading for academics and policymakers alike.
For more than a decade, incarcerated men and women—with their 'Ivory Tower' allies—have been building elite private colleges in the prison systems of New York and other states. Daniel Karpowitz details their collective struggles, and, in doing so, he rediscovers the great social promise of the liberal arts.
The story of the Bard Prison Initiative is a symbol of hope in the era of mass incarceration. Daniel Karpowitz brings to life the men in this innovative program, who remind us how powerful education can be in our lives.
In gripping detail, Karpowitz offers a human-driven account of efforts to reestablish higher education in America's prisons. Along the way, we're faced with the moral challenge: by what right do we restrict access to the country's best innovations to those who languish in its most barbarous?
College in Prison is a deeply thoughtful meditation on one of the most pressing issues related to the US mass incarceration crisis: the inimitable, invaluable power of higher education behind bars. Karpowitz approaches this vital subject with the sensitivity of a practitioner and the meticulous analysis of a scholar, producing a worthy study that speaks to hearts and minds both.
This is a book for our time. It firmly plants college access as a core aspect in the prison reform agenda and infuses that agenda with humanity and hope. Karpowitz describes the teachers and students with kindness and honesty so that we see real people struggling to breathe the life of curiosity and engagement into the soul-killing place that prison can too often be. If you care about prison reform, this book will rock you.
College in Prison is an absolutely unforgettable story of how and why an ambitious program at a relatively small New York-based academic institution might hold the key to a revolutionary way of re-imagining our nation's approach to mass incarceration. Karpowitz has written a wonderfully sophisticated and moving story about his choice to devote the bulk of his adult life to a powerful project that takes prisoners and their possible futures incredibly seriously. Reading this text closely means never thinking about the implications of imprisonment quite the same way again.
Using his fascinating experiences with the Bard Prison Initiative, Daniel Karpowitz presents a refreshing take on pressing academic and social questions. This is an important story to tell.
The Bard Prison Initiative has been a rare ray of light in the darkness of mass incarceration. Karpowitz's account tells its story, and turns that light to uncovering new truths about the American prison in our time.
Total praise for College in Prison! Karpowitz provides an argument that education helps to relieve the harm caused by incarceration. This work delivers an intimate glimpse into the hearts and minds of those for whom critical thinking has become salvation.
This gripping firsthand account of progressive pedagogy in prison at the height of mass incarceration by a dedicated scholar-activist and gifted educator is a truly inspiring and practical call to action to undo the brutality of our nation's lock-down.
The College that Enters Prison in Transformed' by Sonya Postentier interview with Daniel Karpowitz
College Campuses Should Not Be Safe Spaces,' by Jonathan Zimmerman
New Walz recruit aims to expand college in Minnesota prisons' by Stephen Montemayor
http://www.startribune.com/new-walz-recruit-aims-to-expand-college-in-minnesota-prisons/514352992/
DANIEL KARPOWITZ is the director of policy and national projects for the Bard Prison Initiative and lecturer in law and the humanities at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He is the cofounder of the Consortium for the Liberal Arts in Prison, and has been a Soros Justice Fellow at the Open Society Institute, a fellow at the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright Fellow in Kathmandu, Nepal.
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Literature, Literacy, and the Transformation of American Punishment, 1700–1845
By Jodi Schorb
