Deadline: July 1; August 15, 2021
In light of the controversial events related to issues of policing and incarceration that we have witnessed in the past year in the U.S Eastern Europe and Russia this proposed stream aims to examine the field’s understanding and teaching of/in prisons. The powerful legacy of Russian and Eastern European authoritarian regimes and their historical practices of unjust detention imprisonment and exile also offer the opportunity to consider how the past inflects more recent conflicts between the state and its citizens and immigrants. Our panel will showcase new research on prison literature a category that includes but is not limited to fictional depictions of prison and labor camps autobiography memoirs and letters from a range of eras. Our roundtable will address approaches to teaching prison literature and academics teaching literature in prisons a growing practice in general and within Slavic Studies in particular. Operating on the principle that prisons are institutions which are intricately tied to society despite their fortified walls obscuring what happens therein this stream seeks to illuminate an array of carceral states understood both as governmental biopolitical regimes of punishment and control and the experiences of captivity and coercion.
AATSEEL’s two deadlines are July 1 and August 15. If you are interested in joining our stream, please be sure to indicate this intention when submitting a paper or roundtable proposal here.