Reading is my window
Subtitle: books and the art of reading in women's prisons
By: Megan Sweeney
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Number of pages: 332
ISBN-13: 9780807833520; 9780807871003
Description: This book represents a significant contribution to interdisciplinary research focused on women prisoners' reading habits and attempts at self-education and improvement. Sweeney (English and Afroamerican and African Studies, Univ. of Michigan) interviewed 94 women prisoners and collected data on their experiences reading behind bars. Along the way, she provides insight into the history of reading and education in the U.S. penal system, attitudes toward African American urban fiction, and the gender and race politics of corrections. She details how reading and library service can be used as instruments of control by prison authorities and how prisoners still manage to use reading as a tool for self-improvement. In-depth portraits of two women prisoners show the positive impact reading can have despite a lack of educational programs.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [305]-323) and index.
Table of contents: title: Tell me what you read, I will tell you what you are : reading and education in U.S. penal history; title: The underground book railroad : material dimensions of reading; title: Between a politics of pain and a politics of pain's disavowal; title: Fear of books : reading urban fiction; title: To set the captives free : self-help reading practices; title: Encounters : the meeting ground of books; title: Conclusion. This really isn't a rehabilitation place : policy considerations.