In the U.S. today, more people are sentenced to more time in more prisons and in greater isolation than at any other time in its history. This project investigates how isolation operates within the organization and reproduction of the contemporary American prison system: how it is produced, what effects it has, and the primary arenas or means by which it is contested or undermined. Specifically, penal isolation and its contradictions at four main sites located in the contemporary landscape of the New York State penal system: in the immediate, architectural space of solitary confinement within the prison itself; in the increasingly remote siting of prisons far from prisoner families and communities; from the densely penalized space of the urban “million-dollar block”; and in the spaces of circulation between and within urban and prison space which emerge or persist as social rebuttals to the organization of penal isolation.

Brett Story is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography and Program in Planning. Her research focuses on the U.S. prison system, and the shifting relationship between urban and penal space. Brett has also worked extensively as an independent documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist, writing and producing video for publications such as The Nation, The Montreal Mirror, and the Toronto Review of Books.

The seminar will run from 4-6pm and will be followed by a screening of “Prisonville, USA” from 6-8pm.
Refreshments will be provided so please join us!