Category: 2014-2015 Common Read: Orange Is The New Black

Check out White Privilege and Orange is the New Black

Cross-posted from Everyday Sociology Blog (http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/)

Jonathan Wynn is an associate professor of Sociology at UMass Amherst and member of the Common Read Programming Committee

Orange is the New Black is filled with characters from a plethora of backgrounds and vastly different personalities. Yet, at the heart of the story, Piper begins to understand the connections that bind the women together and allow them to create a complex community incorporating each of those differences.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRSdWTFdnZ8[/youtube]

As Shawnee notes in the video “We’re all the same, even though we’re different”. What are the differences that you carry with you and how do they help strengthen your relationships with others? How does your identity help you to build those relationships – especially when entering a new community like UMass?

Hello, hello!

It’s that time of year again and we are happy to announce that the Common Read Essay Contest is ready for submissions!

The Prompt:

Piper Kerman’s story is a window into a world most readers have never seen before. With each person she meets, Piper struggles with critical issues for understanding what it means to be a part of her new community: race, gender, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, power, and privilege. This book is an invitation to reflect on how everyone’s stories intersect but are also shaped and informed by those larger social issues, too. How does Piper’s experience illuminate the opportunities and challenges ahead, as you begin to live and work with people from different cultures and experiences at UMass Amherst?

The Rules

1. All fall 2014 new incoming undergraduate students are eligible to enter.
2. Essays should be between 3-5 pages long, or approximately 750-1,250 words, typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins and 12-point type.
3. Direct quotations from Orange is the New Black should be appropriately marked and cited, with page numbers in parentheses.
4. The first page of the essay should include your name, campus address, phone number, and UMass email address.  Please give your essay a title.
5. Essays should be submitted electronically as an email attachment (either PDF or Word) to commonread@sacl.umass.edu .
6. Essays must be received no later than Monday, September 1st, 2014, at 5:00 pm EST.

The Prizes!

• Gift card from the University Store
• Write-up in The Daily Collegian
• Recognition and essay publication on the Common Read blog
• Announcement at the Piper Kerman dinner event
• Certificate of recognition

So, now that you have the details it’s time to get writing or, if you haven’t started reading, you can get on that too!

While reading Orange is the New Black, I thought a lot about the ways in which Piper’s prison sentence challenged her to adapt to an entirely new way of living. This made me also think about the ways in which I myself have at times entered a new environment and had to learn the nuances of how to thrive in those circumstances. The immediate example I think of is college. As a first-generation student (meaning: neither of my parents went to college), I moved into my dorm room and started classes feeling overwhelmed and thinking that I would never “fit in” with my new surroundings. I was confused by the language that professors were using, I felt inundated with administrative tasks, and I became frustrated by the amount of unspoken college customs that my peers seemed to pick up on naturally (apparently, it was massively “uncool” to use a tray in our dining hall). Ten days in and I was convinced that I had made the wrong decision in going to school and decided I should probably go home.

By the end of the first month, however, things got progressively easier. I started making friends and becoming more familiar with the way things worked on campus. I challenged myself to meet with professors during office hours and attend student events. I got to know the people who worked in the dining hall and library. I even got a fun job on campus, working in the video editing lab. The rest of the semester went by quickly and I found myself legitimately sad to go home for winter break. Since then, I have been lucky enough to make a career out of helping students find their way in college.

Going to prison is obviously very different than going to college, but the process of entering a new environment and learning how adapt is often similar regardless of the specific circumstance. We, like Piper, are forced to re-think our perspectives, rely on the help of others, and grow in our resilience. We learn a lot about ourselves while doing so. I find Piper’s story particularly inspirational because of how many human connections she made and how her experience in prison helped her understand the depth of the lives of a population of people that is often stereotyped and misunderstood. In this way, Piper shows readers that she not only learned how to survive the physical structure of prison, but also grew in her understanding of the incarcerated population while learning a lot about herself as well.

As we look at every new experience as an opportunity to learn and grow, we soon realize that our capacity for both is huge. Sometimes it is bigger than we ever thought.

 Guest post by Adam Ortiz, Learning Communities Specialist

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKYYb0bGn28[/youtube]

Orange is the New Black is full of individuals from diverse backgrounds with a wide array of personalities. Piper’s journey through her 15-month sentence allows her to engage with people she likely would never have known. While your journey at UMass will definitely be different from Piper’s there is at least one commonality your journeys share and that will be the opportunity meet people you may never have had the opportunity to meet. So what are you looking for as you build your relationships? How do you get passed initial appearances to learn about the person inside and really understand where they’re coming from and who they are?

Can you see the good in people?

 

As someone who has an affinity for baked goods in general and has been coined the ‘Cheesecake Queen’ of my family, I found the concept of prison cheesecake to be an ironic metaphor throughout the book. Food brought women of all cultures and backgrounds together during their stay in prison. For Piper, these women became her family while inside. One of the most important connections Piper made while in prison was Pop, who happened to be the prison cook. This may be relatable for many of you since the focal point of many family gatherings is the meal. We as a culture regularly share our hopes, dreams, aspirations, and life struggles over food. We as humans work to create connections with others and when we are in a vulnerable place in our lives is when we rely the most on those connections developed. Why would this be any different inside prison?

For the prison cheesecake recipe, check out page 150. I have not tried this recipe yet, but hope to for my next large family gathering. Bon appetite!

Guest post by Karen Magness-Pokornowski, Learning Communities Specialist

 

We’re now part way through the summer. Some of you may have started reading (and even finished). Some of you may be trying to work your way through the Netflix series (I hear season 2 is pretty darn good). Some of you may still be patiently waiting to come to Summer NSO!

Regardless of where you are right now, one of the things that we want to make sure you connect with is, well, each other. While Common Read might seem a little bit like a simple summer reading project it is so much more than that. Right now, staff and faculty from across campus are working together to make sure that this experience is one that will engage you academically and socially. It’s not just about reading a book but sharing that experience with other first-year students, staff living and working with you in your residence hall and faculty members throughout campus. It’s about sharing that experience to build a community that you will be a vital part of!

Check out this short clip and hear what some of your fellow students have to say. As you read Orange is the New Black, I encourage you to think about how community plays out in the book and what you want your community here at UMass to be like. Be sure to leave your thoughts below or tweet us at @UMassCommonRead. Promise we’ll get back to you!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/yop1YVioriE[/youtube]

Happy Monday! Some of you reading may have already received your copy and many more will be receiving a copy soon when you venture to Amherst for Summer NSO! Regardless of if you’ve received your copy or not there are some things you can start thinking about RIGHT NOW!

As part of the events that will take place during the summer and school year we will be hosting an essay-writing competition. Now, you may be thinking “They’re already giving me an assignment and classes haven’t started yet. What is going on?!”. Don’t worry though! The essay competition is a chance for you to write about what you’ve read and how you’re preparing to join us here at UMass Amherst.

Curious about the prompt? No need. Check it out below!

“Piper Kerman’s story is a window into a world most readers have never seen before. With each person she meets, Piper struggles with critical issues for understanding what it means to be a part of her new community: race, gender, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, power, and privilege. This book is an invitation to reflect on how everyone’s stories intersect but are also shaped and informed by those larger social issues, too. How does Piper’s experience illuminate the opportunities and challenges ahead, as you begin to live and work with people from different cultures and experiences at UMass Amherst?”

See? Not so difficult to get behind and a chance to think about integrating and experiencing all of the new opportunities here on campus!

Details for submission will be posted soon so check back here or at the Common Read Website. You can also email us your questions at commonread@sacl.umass.edu or Professor David Fleming at dfleming@english.umass.edu.

HAPPY WRITING!

Interested in courses specifically connected to themes woven throughout Orange is the New Black?  Check out the courses listed below for descriptions on options available for next fall!

1. FFYS 197CR1 Common Read FFYS: Privilege and helping professions: Insights from Orange is the New Black.  Tu 8:30 – 9:20 am, Hills House 267. Prof. Jacqueline Mosselson, Educational Policy, Research, and Administration.

On NPR, Piper Kerman pointed out that networks and publishers needed a white protagonist to tell the “tales of Black women, Latina women, and old women and criminals” she “discovered” in prison. In this seminar, we will use OITNB as a launch pad to discuss white privilege and its impact on meaningful “social work,” that include but are not limited to education, development, community service learning, and notions of “wanting to give back” in general. We will explore the structural inequities that OITNB discusses, and examine issues of privilege and relatability as we apply it to complex questions about ways in which to engage collaboratively with communities both domestically and internationally to reverse inequities with responsibility & respect. The class will introduce participants to social theories of education, cultural studies, development studies, and critical psychology as we think more generally about engaging critically and responsibly with communities.

2. FFYS 197CR2 Common Read FFYS: The Prison-Industrial Complex and the Prison Abolitionist Movement.  Mo 12:20 – 1:10 pm, Herter 204. Prof. Sigrid Schmalzer, Social Thought and Political Economy.

The Pioneer Valley is a hotbed for prison abolition activism – a movement that seeks not only to improve conditions for prisoners but to dismantle the “prison-industrial complex” that many argue continues the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. In this course, we will analyze writings, hip-hop music, and art produced by prisoners and prison abolitionists, discuss their perspectives on race, class, gender, and sexuality in the prison system, and debate their tactics. The format will break down the walls and hierarchies of a traditional classroom experience: we will regularly bring in activists from local grassroots organizations, and the instructor will collaborate with an advanced undergraduate student activist to facilitate class discussions based on an anti-hierarchical model of community organizing. The course will thus provide opportunities to learn not only about prisons, but also about how faculty, students, and community can work together on issues that concern us all.

3. FFYS 197CR3 Common Read FFYS: Orange is the New Black.  Mo 4:00 – 4:50 pm, Elm 214.  Prof. Alexandrina Deschamps, Women Gender Sexuality Studies and Commonwealth Honors College.

It is an ideal opportunity to work closely with first year students, build closer relationships with them, and use class projects and presentations to share with students.

4. FFYS 197CR4 Common Read FFYS: A Semester in the Life: Writing Your Way Into College. Tu 2:30 -3:20 pm, Bartlett 319. Prof. David Fleming, English.

As any journal-keeper, or blogger, knows, writing can be a good way to work through major changes in your life.  And starting college is a major change!  For most of you, you’ll be leaving home for the first time in your life, moving into a dorm with hundreds of strangers, and beginning a phase of your education that will be more demanding, and more dependent on your own initiative, than ever before.  With Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black as inspiration, you’ll use writing to work your way through your first semester here: recording, describing, narrating, analyzing, interrogating, trouble-shooting, and communicating your experience for yourself and others.  We’ll do lots of writing, some reading, and a good bit of sharing.  You’ll not only produce a non-fiction record of your first semester here; you’ll get a good introduction to the intellectual and creative life of college itself.

5. FFYS 197CR5 Common Read FFYS: Prison Writing. Th 2:30 – 3:20, Bartlett 131. Prof. Suzanne Daly, English.

This class will place this year’s Common Read selection, Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black, in the context of major works by US prison authors. To help the class consider in more depth how incarcerated US writers have represented their lived experience, throughout the semester I will provide short excerpts of work by prisoners including Angela Davis, Jean Harris, Kim Wozencraft, and Malcolm X that relate to our two central texts, Orange is the New Black and On the Yard (1967). Much of the semester will be spent reading Malcolm Braly’s classic prison novel On the Yard a few chapters at a time and discussing its treatment of topics including psychiatry, sexuality, mental illness, labor, social hierarchies, and the drug trade in prison in relation to Orange is the New Black. We will conclude by analyzing a few episodes of the TV series Orange is the New Black.

6. FFYS 197CR6 Common Read FFYS: Orange is the New Black. Th 2:30 – 3:20, place TBA. Prof. Jennifer Merton, ISOM.

This is a wonderful opportunity to use the Common Read book, Orange is the New Black, to explore the role that lawyers play in our criminal justice system.  I envision that we will begin the class by looking at how criminal statutes are enacted (with an emphasis on modern drug laws at the state and federal level and the role that lawyers play in policy development and the legislative process.)  Next, the class will explore the role of the lawyer at the arrest and bail stages, the plea bargain stage, the motions stage, and, finally, the trial stage of the criminal system.  The class will then look at the role lawyers play in the appeals process.  Last, the role that lawyers play in safeguarding incarcerated inmates will be examined.  The importance of advocacy in our system will be a primary focus, with opportunities for students to engage in various forms of advocacy.  Case Law, Statutes, and other legal sources will be utilized, as well as readings from literature, the social sciences, philosophy, and business.  Film excerpts will also be incorporated into the class.  This course will provide students with research and writing opportunities, along with instruction in the use of various communication technologies (allowing students to engage in hands on learning about website design, blogs, and social media.)

[youtube]http://youtu.be/gA9ZKIYZXBo[/youtube]

Take a few minutes to check out what your fellow students have to say about this year’s Common Read! Check back on a regular basis for more updates or if you’re interested in sharing your own thoughts as a guest writer, email the Common Read Committee at commonread@sacl.umass.edu!