TI 222 - Pernicious Prisons? A Comparative Study of Carceral Systems: France and the US

Min Units: 3
Max Units: 3
One can discern the fabric of a society by looking at the way it enforces punishment, as well as the way it perceives and treats the punished, especially those serving prison sentences. If the French and American carceral systems share some similarities, it is in their major differences that the social and cultural structures of each country truly surface. In this course, the students will be introduced to two carceral systems that we will compare and contrast throughout the semester in order to better understand what makes the French and the American cultures so similar, yet so different. With the help of excerpts by thinkers like Michel Foucault, Didier Fassin, Gaston Bachelard, Jean-Paul Sartre; fiction and non-fiction excerpts from authors like Alexander Dumas, Tayari Jones, Albert Woodfox, and Ted Conover, as well as movies, documentaries and art, the students will delve into the concepts of crime, morality, punishment, time, Panopticon and the eye of the other, power, fear, space, personal and social identity from a intercultural awareness point of view. (U) Occasionally