Crime and Punishment in
American Literature
(26:352:518)
Fall 2008
Professor H. Bruce
Franklin
Office: Hill 515
Phone: 973-353-5444
E-mail: hbf@andromeda.rutgers.edu
Office Hours: MON: 4:00-5:00; WED 2:30-3:30; and by appointment.
Home Page: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~hbf
REQUIRED TEXTS: (Editions listed are those ordered at New Jersey Books. You
may substitute except where noted.)
Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Penguin.
Herman Melville, Billy Budd & The Piazza Tales . Barnes &
Noble Classics (OK to substitute as long as text for Billy Budd,
Sailor is the one edited by Hayford and Sealts.)
Upton Sinclair, The Jungle. New American Library.
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest. Vintage paperback.
Neal Stephenson, Zodiac. Bantam.
H. Bruce Franklin, Prison Writing in 20th-Century America. Penguin.
Tim O'Brien, In the Lake of the Woods. Penguin.
Donald Goines, Dopefiend. All America Distributors.
Walter Mosley, Little Scarlet. Vision.
Héctor Tobar. The Tattooed Soldier. Penguin.
[RECOMMENDED Any one of the following widely available books would be very helpful in understanding the prison system in America today:
Scott Christianson, With
Liberty for Some. Northeastern University Press.
Marc Mauer, Race to Incarceratee. New Press.
David Cole, No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal
Justice System.
New Press.
Elliott Currie, Crime and Punishment in America. Henry Holt.
Joy James, States of Confinement. Palgrave.
Christian Parenti, Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of
Crisis. Verso.
Jeffrey Reiman, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison. Allyn
& Bacon.
Daniel Burton Rose, Dan Pens, and Paul Wright, eds., The Celling of
America: An Inside
look at the U.S. Prison Industry. Common Courage
Press.
Elihu Rosenblatt, ed., Criminal Injustice: Confronting the Prison Crisis.
South End Press.]
Assignments must be completed by the indicated dates:
September 8 Organization, description, and methodology of the seminar. Video: "Maximum Security University."
September
15 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An
American Slave (1845 edition). Herman Melville, "Benito Cereno"
(1855).
September 22 Herman Melville, "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of
Wall Street" (1853); Billy Budd, Sailor (1891).
September 29 Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906).
October 6 Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest (1929)
See the movie Chinatown (1974) any time before this seminar meeting. A copy will be available on the fourth floor of Dana Library and videos are widely available for rental.
October 13 In Prison Writing in 20th-Century America:
Foreword by Tom Wicker
Editor's Introduction
in From Plantation to
Penitentiary
Plantation Prison
"Autobiography of an Imprisoned Peon" (1904)
Songs of the Prison Plantation
"Go Down Old Hannah"
"Midnight Special"
"Easy Rider"
in The Early Modern American
Prison
Jack London "'Pinched': A Prison Experience" and
"The Pen" (1907)
Agnes Smedley "Cell Mates" (1920)
Kate Richards O'Hare from Crime and Criminals
(1921)
Jim Tully "A California Holiday" (1928)
Ernest Booth "Ladies in Durance Vile" (1931)
Chester Himes "To What Red Hell?" (1934)
Nelson Algren "El Presidente de Méjico" (1947)
Robert Lowell "Memories of West Street and
Lepke" (1956)
in The Movement and the Prison
Malcolm X
from The Autobiography of Malcolm X
(1965)
George Jackson from Soledad Brother
(1970)
Iceberg Slim from The Naked Soul of
Iceberg Slim (1971)
Mshaka
"Formula for Attica Repeats" (1974)
Piri Thomas from Seven
Long Times (1974)
Jack Abbott from In
the Belly of the Beast (1981)
Assata Shakur from Assata (1987)
in The American Gulag Today
Dannie Martin "AIDS: The View from a
Prison Cell" (1986)
"A
Prescription for Torture" (1990)
"A
Mount Everest of Time" (1990)
Mumia Abu-Jamal "B-Block Days
and Nightmares" (1990)
"Skeleton Bay" (1993)
"Already Out of the Game" (1994)
Jimmy Santiago Baca "Past Present"
(1992)
October 20 In Prison Writing in 20th-Century America:
in The
Literary Renaissance
Malcolm
Braly from On the Yard (1967)
Etheridge Knight "The Warden Said to Me the Other
Day" (1968)
"Hard
Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane" (1968)
"For Freckle-Faced Gerald" (1968)
Paul Mariah "Quarry/Rock: A Reality
Poem in the Tradition of Genet" (1969)
"Always We Watch
Them" (1970)
"Shakedown
& More" (1971)
Norma Stafford "In Santa Cruz" (1972)
"The Gone
One" (1973)
William Wantling "from Sestina to
San Quentin" (1973)
"Poetry" (1973)
"Who's
Bitter?" (1973)
Michael Hogan "Spring" (1975)
"Confessions
of a Jailhouse Lawyer" (1975)
Carolyn Baxter "Lower Court" (1979)
"35 Years a
Correctional Officer" (1979)
"On Being
Counted" (1979)
Jimmy Santiago Baca "The New Warden" (1979)
"The County
Jail" (1979)
"I Applied for the Board" (1982)
Jackie Ruzas "Easy To
Kill" (1975)
"The Bus
Ride" (1983)
Edward Bunker from Little Boy Blue (1981)
Nathan C. Heard from House of Slammers
(1983)
Charles Culhane "Of Cold Places"
(1984)
"Autumn
Yard" (1985)
"First Day
of Hanukkah" (1986)
Patricia McConnel "Sing Soft, Sing
Loud" (1989)
Kim Wozencraft from Notes
from the Country Club (1993)
Jerome Washington "Diamond Bob" (1994)
"The Blues Merchant"
(1994)
"Nobody's Hoss"
(1994)
"Barracuda and
Sheryl" (1994)
"Shing-a-Ling and
China" (1994)
Kathy Boudin "Our Skirt"
(1997)
"The Call" (1997)
Donald Goines, Dopefiend
(1971)
October 27 Walter Mosley, Little Scarlet (2004)
November 3 Neal Stephenson, Zodiac (1988)
November 10 Tim O'Brien, In the Lake of the Woods (1994)
November 17 Héctor Tobar, The
Tattooed Soldier (1998)
November 24
Presentations by members of the seminar.
December 1 Presentations by members of the seminar.
December 8 Presentations by members of the seminar.
December 8 Final day for submission of original essay (minimum length 3,500 words). Extensions without penalty will be granted only for medical or other emergencies.
The essay must be an original work relating to one or more of the issues or works explored in the seminar. It should have something significant to communicate, and it should be worth its readers' time. Please note that after November 17, there is no assigned reading. This allows three weeks to spend exclusively on your essay, which is your only major project for the course. Your aim should be to produce a work of potentially publishable quality in both form and content.
The physical appearance of your work should be attractive and professional looking. The print should be very black and pleasant to read. Citations and format should follow either the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers or The Chicago Manual of Style.
Presentations by Members of the Seminar
During the last three meetings, each member of the seminar will lead a discussion relevant to his or her essay. One week before your presentation, you should supply all other members of the seminar with written materials to read in preparation. These materials might be anything from notes and problems to a rough draft (or even the finished essay). The easiest way to provide these materials is by e-mail through the list we’ll set up. When leading this discussion, you will be entirely in charge of the seminar. You may use the time to pose problems you have encountered in developing your essay, to explore the subject of your essay more deeply, to present a brief version of your essay, or whatever you think most valuable. Everybody needs to prepare for each discussion by studying the appropriate materials before that seminar meets.
Tests and Responsibility to Complete the Readings on Time
The success of the seminar depends on each member reading each assigned text on time and then contributing to our discussion on a level to be expected of a graduate student. If it becomes apparent that some people are not adequately prepared, it may be necessary to resort to brief tests on the readings the date they are due. Let’s try to avoid that. There will be no midterm or final examination.