ART 323 - Prison Museums, Plantation Tourism, and Penal Heritage Commemoration

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as AFRS 323) What allows for some former plantations, prisons, and jails to achieve the distinguished status of heritage site while other similar places are simply razed and forgotten? This interdisciplinary cultural analysis course comparatively explores issues of power, race, difference, and knowledge through case studies of prison museums and other carceral heritage sites. Students analyze how writers, curators, and social theorists, respond to competing historical narratives concerning the topic of incarceration. Course readings feature essays by prominent critics of the prison-industrial complex in tandem with photo-essays that commemorate various prisons across the globe, exhibition and curatorial work premised on anti-colonial and anti-carceral museum interventions, and transnational debates on the topic of memory and history. By the end of the course, students better understand the various motivations for preserving carceral sites as well as the differing relationships spectators and visitors have with these vexed places. Michael Reyes Salas.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS