Law and the Humanities, Co-Sponsored by Section on Criminal Justice and Section on Minority Groups

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This panel will– through imagery, music, documents, and data- explore how people outside of prisons can understand something about the enormity of the impact of being confined in a prison. Judith Resnik will provide an introduction that underscores the role of individual and collectives of prisoners who, in the 1960s, insisted on their right to legal protection and succeeded in overturning centuries of law that disowned their personhood. Andrea Armstrong’s discussion, Retaking the Carceral Space, will draw on images of abandoned prison facilities in Louisiana as tools from which to learn about what prisons did then and what the spaces could be made to do now. Sharon Dolovich’s comments, Uncovering COVID: Empirical Research and Law Schools’ Contributions to Materializing the Prison, will outline some of the facets of a remarkable website that maps the harms of COVID-19 in prisons, responses by officials, and legal efforts to mitigate the risks. Dwayne Betts will draw on the Exhibition Redactions in his talk, Getting People Out, Getting Books In, as he explores the impact of law, people’s narratives, and literature in prisons.