Incarceration and Imagination

A symposium at Yale University
Free and open to the public
Prison has become the punitive shadow to all the major institutions of modernity. How has contemporary mass incarceration shaped inner life, public spectacle, moral possibilities? How does writing from inside and outside prison walls help us imagine a future beyond the carceral state. This day-long symposium in the Humanities Quadrangle at Yale—featuring scholars, prison education advocates, writers, and more—is free and open to all.
The Symposium starts from the fact of mass incarceration in the US today and attempts to understand how mind reacts to imprisonment—both the image and the reality. For over two centuries, Western societies have built a penal system founded principally on incarceration. How has this fact shaped inner life, public spectacle, moral possibilities? How might artistic creation about incarceration help us bring about a more humane future?
Sponsored by Whitney Humanities Center, the Arthur Liman Center at Yale Law, and Freedom Reads. The organizers thank Richard Weisberg and the Law and Humanities Institute for additional support for the symposium.