A Global History of Prisons and Camps (253-0-20)
Instructors
Benjamin Frommer
847/491-2877
Harris Hall Room 206
Meeting Info
Harris Hall L07: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
This course examines two institutions - the prison and the detention camp - that traditionally have been studied separately. At the course's foundation lies a hypothesis: the practice of imprisoning masses of people for extended periods of time is both a product of the modern state and a constituent element of the modern era. Every modern state has its own prison system to remove those it deems criminal from society. Over the past two centuries numerous regimes have resorted to detention camps in one form or another: to confine allegedly rebellious peoples, feared minorities, enemy soldiers, or stateless refugees. With varying degrees of brutality and murderous intent - a critical consideration the course will always keep in mind - those in power have used prisons and camps to suppress racial, religious, political, and other identified groups, and to exploit their labor for public and private use. Authorities have mandated that the condemned toil in confinement to pay a debt to society and for their own rehabilitation. Regardless of the great variety of pretexts under which regimes have imprisoned citizens and subjects, both modern structures of incarceration and the experience of the incarcerated bear a great number of similarities that this course will explore and discuss. The course begins with a consideration of alternate forms of punishment common to the premodern era and then follows the development and spread of the modern prison and the proliferation of mass detention camps across the globe over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will seek to understand the prisoner experience (to the extent possible) and discuss the place of bounded sites of detention in governance, justice, repression, societal relations, and, ultimately, tourism.
Learning Objectives
The course introduces students to the intertwined histories of the modern prison and various types of detention camps (concentration, reeducation, forced labor, refugee) that became ubiquitous over the course of the modern era. With an eye to both similarity and difference, the course aims to investigate these developments from an integrated global perspective in an effort to understand the ideas behind the implementation of specific systems of confinement and the lived experience of those confined. Students will read a variety of sources, including primary witness accounts, and employ them in class discussions and written assignments to craft original historical arguments.
Evaluation Method
Discussion section participation (20%), Weekly Journal Entries (10%), Paper (5-7pp.:30%), Final Exam/Paper/Project (40%)
Class Notes
Concentration: Global
Class Attributes
Ethical and Evaluative Thinking Foundational Disci
Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity
Ethics & Values Distro Area
Associated Classes
DIS - Locy Hall 314: Fri 10:00AM - 10:50AM
DIS - Kresge Centennial Hall 2-329: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM
DIS - University Hall 318: Fri 11:00AM - 11:50AM
DIS - Harris Hall L28: Fri 12:00PM - 12:50PM
DIS - University Hall 112: Fri 1:00PM - 1:50PM
DIS - University Hall 112: Fri 2:00PM - 2:50PM