Writing Black Life Beyond the Prison

FAIN: FT-285979-22

Marquita Renee Smith
Rowan University (Glassboro, NJ 08028-1702)

Research and writing of a book exploring how contemporary Black women's writing clarifies and theorizes the multiple forms of both power and resistance within a carceral culture.

Scholarship about prison literature has typically focused on works composed by those who are or have been imprisoned and represent direct experiences of incarceration. By focusing on contemporary black women’s writing from non-imprisoned perspectives, “Writing Black Life Beyond the Prison” explores how carceral logics and modes intercede in the affective, everyday lives of black people outside of the prison. The project examines contemporary black women’s writing to illustrate how it more broadly theorizes carceral power and offers a framework of care as resistance. Attending to these underexamined intimate representations of carcerality, I argue, reveals the assumptions that shape our lived experiences and expands our capacity to imagine a freer future. The project contributes to thoughtful understandings of contemporary culture, and how everyday acts by black women that affirm rather than refuse life are essential for countering the harm of carcerality.