Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-8r8nv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-09T14:11:24.853Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Changing Lives through Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Robert P. Waxler
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

There is something ugly about incarceration. Over 2.2 million people are locked in jails and prisons in the united states; $60 billion a year is spent to support this effort. But there is also the old comparison of the prison with the monk's cell, a place of contemplation and self-reflection, and Jean Genet's sense of “a close relationship between flowers and convicts” (9). As a probation officer I know likes to remind me, “If you want to find Jesus, just go into the prisons. He is always there.” In any discussion of prisons, there are always opposing terms to consider: incarceration and freedom, body and consciousness, the hard core and the vulnerable, mind-forged manacles and visionary imagination.

Information

Type
Theories and Methodologies
Information
PMLA , Volume 123 , Issue 3 , May 2008 , pp. 678 - 683
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by The Modern Language Association of America

References

Works Cited

James, Baldwin. “Sonny's Blues.” Going to Meet the Man. New York: Vintage, 1993. 103–41.Google Scholar
Basbanes, Nicholas A. Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World. New York: Harper, 2005.Google Scholar
William, Blake. The Complete Poems. Ed. Stevenson, W. H. London: Longman, 1971.Google Scholar
William, Blake. “London.” Blake, Complete Poems 213–14.Google Scholar
William, Blake. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Blake, Complete Poems 103–24.Google Scholar
Victor, Brombert. The Romantic Prison: The French Tradition. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1978.Google Scholar
Carnochan, W. B. Confinement and Flight: An Essay on English Literature of the Eighteenth Century. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977.Google Scholar
Simon, Critchley. Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance. London: Verso, 2007.Google Scholar
Samera, Esmeir. “On Making Dehumanization Possible.” PMLA 121 (2006): 1544–51.Google Scholar
Michel, Foucault. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Sheridan, Alan. New York: Vintage, 1977.Google Scholar
Jean, Genet. The Thief's Journal. Trans. Frechtman, Bernard. New York: Grove, 1964.Google Scholar
Gibbons, John J., and Katzenbach, Nicholas de B. Confronting Confinement: A Report of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons. June 2006 <http://www.prisoncommission.org/pdfs/Confronting_Confinement.pdf>..' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Gibbons,+John+J.,+and+Katzenbach,+Nicholas+de+B.+Confronting+Confinement:+A+Report+of+the+Commission+on+Safety+and+Abuse+in+America's+Prisons.+June+2006+.>Google Scholar
Nathaniel, Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Penguin, 1986.Google Scholar
Jarjoura, Roger G., and Krumholz, Susan T. “Combining Bibliotherapy and Positive Role Modeling as an Alternative to Incarceration.” Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 28 (1998): 127–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franz, Kafka. “Letter to Oskar Pollak.” 27 Jan. 1904. Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors. Trans. Winston, Richard and Winston, Clara. New York: Schocken, 1977. 15–16.Google Scholar
Richard, Kearney. On Stories. London: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Emmanuel, Levinas. Entre Nous: On Thinking-of-the-Other. Trans. Smith, Michael B. and Harshav, Barbara. New York: Columbia UP, 1998.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, Meghan, Trounstine, Jean, and Waxler, Robert. Success Stories: Life Skills through Literature. Washington: Office of Correctional Educ., US Dept. of Educ., 1997.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Boston: Beacon, 1995.Google Scholar
Christopher, Shea. “Life Sentence: How Prison Is Reshaping the U.S.” Boston Globe 23 Sept. 2007, sec. E: 1–2.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Close Reading.” PMLA 121 (2006): 1608–17.Google Scholar
Trounstine, Jean, and Waxler, Robert P. Finding a Voice: The Practice of Changing Lives through Literature. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waxler, Robert P. “In Honor of Rassias: What Literature and Language Mean to Me.” Breakthrough: Essays and Vignettes in Honor of John A. Rassias. Ed. Yoken, Mel B. New York: Lang, 2007. 125–29.Google Scholar
Waxler, Robert P. “Journey Down the River.” The Book Group: A Thoughtful Guide to Forming and Enjoying a Stimulating Book Discussion Group. Ed. Slezak, Ellen. Chicago: Chicago Rev., 1995. 102–07.Google Scholar
Waxler, Robert P., and Trounstine, Jean R., eds. Changing Lives through Literature. South Bend: U of Notre Dame P, 1999.Google Scholar
William, Wordsworth. “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.” The Poems. Ed. Hayden, John O. Vol. 1. New Haven: Yale UP, 1981. 523–29.Google Scholar