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.)
