Events
Current discussion series
From August to December of 2024, Bridges Inside will examine Tommie Shelby’s book The Idea of Prison Abolition (2022) alongside selected works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Over the course of five sessions, participants will consider Shelby’s philosophical examination of prison abolition in relation to literary treatments of incarceration.
Discussions will take place on the first Thursday of every month from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm in the Rodgers Room (John Woolley Building, the University of Sydney Camperdown Campus).
Schedule
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Chair(s)
Sam Shpall and Jedidiah Evans
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition, Introduction and Chapter 1
Selected prison poetry
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Chair(s)
Amie Doan
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition, Chapter 2
James Baldwin, ‘To Be Baptised’ (1972) and other selected prison writing
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Chair(s)
Jedidiah Evans
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition, Chapter 3
Jimmy Santiago Baca, A Place to Stand (2001)
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November 7th
Chair(s)
Lily Patchett
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition, Chapter 4
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From a Dead House (1862)
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Chair(s)
Sam Shpall and Jedidiah Evans
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6
Graeme Dixon, Holocaust Island (1990)
Upcoming events
Bridges Inside October 2024 Discussion
Chair(s)
Jedidiah Evans
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition (2022), Chapter 3
Jimmy Santiago Baca, A Place to Stand (2001)
This session will examine the functional critique of imprisonment alongside a personal account of time inside a maximum-security prison. The session will start with Shelby’s treatment of anti-prison critique grounded in Marxist and critical theory. Dr Jedidiah Evans (English) will then lead a conversation on Jimmy Santiago Baca’s prison memoir which details Baca’s life before, during, and immediately after his imprisonment.
Readings will be sent to participants upon registration.
Bridges Inside November 2024 Discussion
Chair(s)
Lily Patchett
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition (2022), Chapter 4
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes From a Dead House (1862)
This session will contrast current critiques of the carceral system with nineteenth-century approaches to imprisonment. Participants will begin with Shelby’s discussion of the now-widespread critique of the ‘prison-industrial complex.’ Lily Patchett (Philosophy and Italian Studies) will then lead a discussion on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s semi-autobiographical novel Notes from a Dead House (1862) which portrays the lives of convicts in a Serbian prison camp. The novel is generally considered to be a fictional depiction of Dostoevsky’s own imprisonment in a forced labour camp from 1849 to 1854.
Readings will be sent to participants upon registration.
Bridges Inside December 2024 Discussion
Chair(s)
Sam Shpall and Jedidiah Evans
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition (2022), Chapter 5 and Chapter 6
Graeme Dixon, Holocaust Island (1990)
The last session in the series will conclude with a discussion on abolitionist imaginings and the Australian carceral system. Dr Sam Shpall (Philosophy) will begin by considering Shelby’s discussion of alternatives to imprisonment and abolitionist utopias. Dr Jedidiah Evans will then guide a conversation on Graeme Dixon’s poetry collection Holocaust Island (1990). Written while Dixon was imprisoned in Fremantle Prison, the collection bears witness to the contemporary struggles of First Nations Australians. The discussion will conclude with a reflection on how the philosophy and literature of imprisonment enrich, extend, or challenge ideas of prison justice.
Readings will be sent to participants upon registration.
Bridges Inside September 2024 Discussion
Chair(s)
Amie Doan
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition (2022), Chapter 2
James Baldwin, ‘To Be Baptised’ (1972) and other selected prison writing
This session will examine prison abolition in the context of Black radical anti-prison critique. The session will begin with Shelby’s analysis of objections to imprisonment that draw on the link between US chattel slavery and the carceral system. Amie Doan (English) will then guide a discussion on James Baldwin’s essay ‘To Be Baptised’ (1972), first published in the collection No Name in the Street. The essay places Baldwin’s encounters with the US carceral system alongside a panoply of observations on the political tensions of the time.
Readings will be sent to participants upon registration.
Bridges Inside August 2024 Discussion
Chair(s)
Sam Shpall and Jedidiah Evans
Texts
Tommie Shelby, The Idea of Prison Abolition (2022), Introduction and Chapter 1
Selected prison poetry
This session will introduce participants to the idea of prison abolition and set the foundation for the following discussions. Dr Sam Shpall (Philosophy) will begin the conversation by guiding participants through the central ideas of Shelby’s text. Dr Jedidiah Evans (English) will then introduce participants to a selection of poems by incarcerated and formerly incarcerated writers. The discussion will conclude with an examination of the relationship between Shelby’s ideas and the selected poetry.
Readings will be sent to participants upon registration.