Criminality and Spirituality in the US-Mexico Borderlands

• In Event: Identities of Incareceration

Abstract

My presentation examines the use of popular religious imagery in visual art and poetry by incarcerated women in Mexico and California. I argue that in these works, the invisible lives relegated to enclosed, hidden spaces are recast as sacred. Poetry thrives within the prison environment, as its sparse linguistic economy reflects the isolation of the prison environment, even as poets seeks to extend their experiences to a community beyond the bars. The poetry and images I examine redefine justice by turning the apparatus of surveillance on its head, examining and exposing the US power systems from inmates’ perspectives.

Presenter

• Britta Linn Anderson, Washington University, St. Louis