CRES 190R HIstories of the Carceral State

Surveys how over the course of the 20th century and into the present, the U.S. prison system has metastasized with more than 2 million people locked in cages and many millions more under forms of correctional supervision such as parole, probation, or deportation order, as well as the expansion of a policing apparatus that surveils, stops and frisks, asks for "papers, please," and shoots first. Recently, historians have produced works exploring the origins of this era of racialized police terror, criminalization, mass incarceration, and deportation. Course surveys key works in carceral studies while guiding students through the process of crafting their own original research projects.