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Toward a Theory of Censorship in U.S. Prisons: Power, Risk, and Resistance

Thu, Nov 14, 8:00 to 9:20am, Nob Hill D - Lower B2 Level

Abstract

Scholarly discourses surrounding publication censorship policies and practices have virtually ignored the voices of the imprisoned. While existing discourses help us to understand, and critique, the idea that book censorship promotes rehabilitation, safety, and security, they offer top-down analysis, which take for granted the viewpoints and experiences of those who have been incarcerated. Departing from this line of thinking, this paper seeks to develop a theory of censorship in U.S. prisons by centering the perspectives of those who have experienced it first-hand. Drawing on a subset of ten interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals in Illinois, I theorize the censorship of reading material in prisons as a practice of carcerality, which not only defines and regulates the limits of what can be known and expressed, but may also be experienced by prisoners as “control and surveillance of both the mind and body” (Friedman, 2021). I argue that censorship constitutes an exercise of power, which shapes and structures options for resistance through limiting information (Foucault, 1982; Hornqvist, 2010).

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