RELI 256 - Theology of the Prison

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

How might the experience of imprisonment have influenced the development of Christian ideas about the body, salvation, and justice? Does the contemporary crisis of America’s “prison-industrial complex” demand new attention to this aspect of the Christian tradition? In this course, students analyze the experience and representation of imprisonment in influential theological, philosophical, and literary texts from antiquity to the present. At the same time, we examine how inmates in contemporary American prisons are using a wide range of theologies and spiritual practices to heal, gain perspective, and critique unjust institutions. Doing so allows us to assess how the Christian tradition may be employed and critiqued for the purposes of interpreting and challenging American notions and policies of punishment and rehabilitation. Throughout the semester, we also encounter authors from different traditions who conceptualize the challenges of incarceration in ways that are comparable with and challenging to the categories we see in the Christian sources. Klaus Yoder.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS