Here are 100 books that Critical Perspectives on Teaching in Prison fans have personally recommended if you like
Critical Perspectives on Teaching in Prison.
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I have been involved with teaching in prison for the last 22 years, and have taught everything from creative writing to meditation to college classes across carceral facilities in New York, California, and Massachusetts. As the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative at Emerson College’s campus at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, I constantly work with faculty and students who are navigating the teaching and learning environment under some of the most adverse circumstances. These books have helped me feel less alone in this work.
In Daniel Karpowitz’s book, he takes readers behind the scenes in college-in-prison classrooms to explore what a liberal arts education can offer people who are incarcerated, and the educators who facilitate them. Karpowitz was a mentor and a guide as I was building my own college-in-prison program. His steadfast belief in the human capacity for transformative learning shines through in these accessible, riveting pages of what it means to read the canon from a position of marginalization.
The nationally renowned Bard Prison Initiative demonstrates how the liberal arts can alter the landscape inside prisons by expanding access to the transformative power of American higher education. American colleges and universities have made various efforts to provide prisoners with access to education. However, few of these outreach programs presume that incarcerated men and women can rise to the challenge of a truly rigorous college curriculum. The Bard Prison Initiative, however, is different. As this compelling new book reveals, BPI has fostered a remarkable transformation in the lives of thousands of prisoners. College in Prison chronicles how, since 2001, Bard…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I have been involved with teaching in prison for the last 22 years, and have taught everything from creative writing to meditation to college classes across carceral facilities in New York, California, and Massachusetts. As the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative at Emerson College’s campus at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, I constantly work with faculty and students who are navigating the teaching and learning environment under some of the most adverse circumstances. These books have helped me feel less alone in this work.
I could not stop reading this book once I started, and I stayed up late into the night glued to its pages. Bauer, a journalist, takes us inside the prison where he got a job as a correctional officer. Through engrossing prose that pairs his daily experiences with carefully researched historical context about incarceration in the United States, Bauer shows what prisons represent in real time.
An enraging, necessary look at the private prison system, and a convincing clarion call for prison reform.” —NPR.org
New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018 * One of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2018 * Winner of the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize * Winner of the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism * Winner of the 2019 RFK Book and Journalism Award * A New York Times Notable Book
A ground-breaking and brave inside reckoning with the nexus of prison and profit in America: in one Louisiana prison and over the course…
I have been involved with teaching in prison for the last 22 years, and have taught everything from creative writing to meditation to college classes across carceral facilities in New York, California, and Massachusetts. As the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative at Emerson College’s campus at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, I constantly work with faculty and students who are navigating the teaching and learning environment under some of the most adverse circumstances. These books have helped me feel less alone in this work.
McMay and Kimble’s edited volume brings together a wide range of case studies looking at some form of higher education behind bars. Meant to showcase many different forms of higher education in prison, this book underscores the diversity of what higher education in prison can look like. In each case study, strengths and challenges of a given approach are visible and provide an honest look at how to support learners in a range of circumstances.
Numerous studies indicate that completing a college degree reduces an individual's likelihood of recidivating. However, there is little research available to inform best practices for running college programs inside jails or prisons or supporting returning citizens who want to complete a college degree. Higher Education Accessibility Behind and Beyond Prison Walls examines program development and pedagogical techniques in the area of higher education for students who are currently incarcerated or completing a degree post-incarceration. Drawing on the experiences of program administrators and professors from across the country, it offers best practices for (1) developing, running, and teaching in college programs…
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
I have been involved with teaching in prison for the last 22 years, and have taught everything from creative writing to meditation to college classes across carceral facilities in New York, California, and Massachusetts. As the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative at Emerson College’s campus at Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord, I constantly work with faculty and students who are navigating the teaching and learning environment under some of the most adverse circumstances. These books have helped me feel less alone in this work.
Ok, this book is not specifically about teaching in prison, but it is about teaching from an abolitionist perspective, which is relevant to the same readers interested in teaching in prison. I first read it as part of a National Alliance for Higher Education in Prison’s book group, along with my colleagues from the Emerson Prison Initiative. Love makes the argument that education merely for survival does a disservice to humanness, and transactional education reinforces social hierarchies. Alternatively, abolitionist teaching looks to connect education to liberation.
Winner of the 2020 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award
Drawing on personal stories, research, and historical events, an esteemed educator offers a vision of educational justice inspired by the rebellious spirit and methods of abolitionists.
Drawing on her life’s work of teaching and researching in urban schools, Bettina Love persuasively argues that educators must teach students about racial violence, oppression, and how to make sustainable change in their communities through radical civic initiatives and movements. She argues that the US educational system is maintained by and profits from the suffering of children of color. Instead of trying…
Incarceration is a gigantic problem in the US, especially because of its connection to racial injustice. I have no firsthand experience with prison or the system, and yet it looms large in my imagination and my deepest fears. That should not be the case merely because I’m a Black gay American, but here we are. I feel that with the help of my mother and others, I have managed to sidestep a lot of the potential pitfalls of people’s misguided perception of my identity, but I have an active, paranoid imagination and profound survivor guilt, so I gravitate toward stories about people at who are odds with our society in ways that reflect that precarious status which allows me to explore a wide range of human experiences.
This book is one of the most compassionate, no-nonsense, and highly informative books about the system out there.
It’s intended as a helpful guide for people who are about to leave prison, but if you’re on the outside and curious about the largely hidden, unconsidered, and technical aspects of incarceration in the USA, this book, like its earlier companion, Behind Bars, will blow your mind and maybe save your life, especially if you’re involved in the system.
Hi, I’m E.C. Glynn. I love writing stories that tackle the messiness of religious societies and belief systems through a fantasy lens. What qualifies me for such an endeavour? Well, with a Master's in International Relations, a decade as a Recovering Catholic, a career as an Officer in the Army, and an unhealthy fascination with cults, I think that’s not a bad place to start for developing a nuanced and interesting perspective on the topic. I am a very picky reader and need to read books that have beautiful prose, interesting worlds, complex and convoluted concepts, and believable dialogue to enjoy my reading experience.
This book tore me out of a reading slump and reminded me what good writing looks and viscerally feels like in my body.
It is dark, dangerous, gory, and completely bingeable. I loved the depiction of religion and faith – and the way it was used as both a weapon, shield, and prison by different characters. The romance was spicy and devastating. The stakes, impossibly high. The characters…utterly unforgettable.
One of the few books I will make time to re-read over and over, both to study to improve my own writing, and simply to just ruin myself in – over and over again.
'This book is bloody brilliant' V.E. Schwab 'A ripping read' Joe Abercrombie
The SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestseller from the award-winning author of the Nevernight Chronicle
It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise.
Ever since, vampires have waged war against humanity building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Gabriel de Leon, half man, half monster, and last remaining silversaint - a sworn brother of the holy Silver Order dedicated to defending the realm from the creatures of the night - is all that stands between the world and its…
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
Hodder and IVP had already published two of my earlier books—during my three decades as a Royal Air Force pilot and another one leading a conflict resolution NGO—when my journey as a WW2 author began. It all started with my wife's book about her German mother and British Intelligence Corps father (The Bride's Trunk). That got me interested in the links between 'the Corps' and the Special Operations Executive. Three SOE books later, I’m following the organisation into Austria. I've barely scratched the surface of undercover operations and I’m always finding new niches to discover.
I am sure that the authenticity of someone who has ‘been there and done it’ is unchallengeable. Airey Neave, who tragically died in 1979 at the hands of the Irish National Liberation Army, was one such. After successfully escaping from the PoW camp at Colditz, he joined MI9, the War Office section that supported escaping PoWs and downed aircrew. This strikes a chord with me as a former pilot. In this book, he tells the stories of French men and women of all ages and backgrounds, who, at great personal danger, formed the backbone of secret escape lines. The narrative is not over-dramatised and the matter-of-fact style is one I respect, but the courage of those who harboured escapees or acted as couriers comes through clearly.
Saturday at M.I.9 is the inside story of the underground escape lines in occupied North-West Europe which brought back to Britain over 4,000 Allied servicemen during World War Two.Airey Neave, who in the last two years of the war was the chief organiser at M.I.9 gives his own unique account. He describes how the escape lines began in the first dark days of German occupation and how, until the end of the war, thousands of ordinary men and women made their own contribution to the Allied victory by hiding and feeding men and guiding them to safety.There isn't a page…
I have read thrillers for as long as I can remember reading adult novels. I can chart my life of reading from Robert Parker to David Baldacci to Jeffery Deaver and today’s luminaries such as Sarah Pekkanen, Mary Kubica, and all the authors listed below. While I love a good beach or airport read, the novels that stick with you—that make you want to clear your schedule because you need to sit and think about what you’ve just read—are my favorites.
A forced emotional bond between an extraordinary 12-year-old girl and an ex-special forces soldier underscores the flat-out action and pace of this read-in-one-sitting thriller from Patrick Lee.
With a hint of the supernatural, it is a little outside the normal, grounded thrillers I tend to gravitate toward, but the way Lee connects his characters and makes their journey into ours is incredible. The best thrillers can improve with each re-read, and I keep being drawn back to this story.
"Breathless, involving, smart, and completely convincing."-Lee Child In Patrick Lee's Runner, Sam Dryden, ex--Special Forces, lives a quiet life in a small town on the coast of Southern California. While out on a run in the middle of the night, he encounters a young girl on the seaside boardwalk. Barefoot and terrified, she's running from a group of heavily armed men with one clear goal: to kill her. Dryden learns that the twelve-year-old can only remember the past two months, during which she's been kept in a secret prison by forces within the government. Beyond her own name, Rachel, she…
I’ve always been intrigued by the behaviors of humans. Even as a child, I’ve watched how people interact with each other. We are all so different, yet we are all the same. Each of us has an imaginary box where keep some things locked up such as: our innermost desires—and our worse fears. Fears that, in a very subtle way, guide us in our life decisions. Afraid of blood… then you’d likely not choose nursing. Afraid of flying… then you probably won’t become a pilot. But what happens when we cannot avoid what we are most afraid of? This is where a horror story begins.
To set the record straight, I do not love this book. I still haven’t come to a decision if I even like it. It isn’t the “best” book on my list, yet it isthe most disturbing. And it is a must-read.
A warning, though. It’s a book that you won’t be able to stop and you’ll likely feel very guilty for even reading it. It dives into human behaviors that we don’t want to think about and surely would not intentionally want to take part in. I’ve a question for you: Is there a limit to what you would do to another human being if others were doing it too? How confident are you in your answer? The worse part about this novel is that it is based on a true story.
A teenage girl is held captive and brutally tortured by neighborhood children. Based on a true story, this shocking novel reveals the depravity of which we are all capable.
This novel contains graphic content and is recommended for regular readers of horror novels.
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
by
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
I have been writing formally since I started my first book in high school. Even then, I was writing with dual POVs. Having multiple perspectives throughout my stories has been essential to all my books. I believe it adds so much more than a single POV can, and I love the process of it. You must decide what each of the characters’ motivations, and defining characteristics are and relate them back to the story. My most recent novel, below, has four POVs, each of which is as important as the others.
This book wasn’t an immediate ‘love’ for me, but it quickly became one of my favorites as I was racing to finish each subsequent book. It uses multiple POVs in one of my favorite ways: to show the POV of the villain(s). I love reading the villain’s side of the story, even if it doesn’t make me like them.
This is one of those cases where adding the villain’s side actually made me dislike the villain even more. It spurs me to cheer for the main character harder and love her when she can prove how powerful she is.
