Critical Prison Theory and Literature
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- ISBN 9781032612287
- Weight: 540g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 27 Apr 2026
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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In a concrete classroom, two hands meet in a welcome handshake. One belongs to a professor who has never seen the inside of a cell and the other to a graffiti artist whose decade behind bars taught him to read power like fault lines in stone. Eleven years later, that handshake has transformed into Critical Prison Theory and Literature: Palimpsest.
The authors put themselves, stories, and theory about prison in conversation, following five metaphors through mass incarceration: retribution as code, isolation as cell, trauma as wound, creativity as graffiti tag, restorative justice as kitchen table. Pairing texts across centuries—Moby Dick with Batman comics, Hamlet with The House on Mango Street—this book represents their part of that larger conversation.
Noe Martinez, a formerly incarcerated artist and author of Mexican and Apache descent, has published on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, co-authored an academic chapter on how to teach math inside prison, and has been featured widely in art exhibitions.
Sarah Higinbotham is an Associate Professor of English at Emory University's Oxford College. She co-founded a statewide program for college programming inside state prisons and has taught more than 4,000 hours of literature studies inside men’s and women’s prisons.
