VOICES Library Lecture Series Archives: Suggested Readings

Rethinking the American Prison Movement provides a short, accessible overview of the transformational and ongoing struggles against America's prison system. Dan Berger and Toussaint Losier show that prisoners have used strikes, lawsuits, uprisings, writings, and diverse coalitions with free-world allies to challenge prison conditions and other kinds of inequality. From the forced labor camps of the nineteenth century to the rebellious protests of the 1960s and 1970s to the rise of mass incarceration and its discontents, Rethinking the American Prison Movement is invaluable to anyone interested in the history of American prisons and the struggles for justice still echoing in the present day. -- Provided by publisher

Losier reviews The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict by Austin Reed and edited by Caleb Smith.

The happiness movement has unleashed a counterforce, led by three academics: Jerome Wakefield of New York University, Allan Horowitz of Rutgers, and Eric Wilson of Wake Forest University. They note that Americans' preoccupation with happiness has come at the expense of sadness, which is an important emotion. Recent discoveries in the science of happiness are discussed. (From abstract).

On the morning of August 12, 1969, a crowd of more than a hundred Black youth attempted to force their way onto the construction site of a multi-million-dollar research facility on the University of Illinois Circle (“UIC”) campus. Finding the front gate locked, these protestors, mostly members of Chicago’s three largest and most notorious street gang organizations—the Black P. Stone Rangers (“Stones”), Black Disciples (“Disciples”), and Conservative Vice Lords (“Lords”)—threatened the foreman and attempted to scale the job site’s gate.

This article discusses reentry to a person's community after incarceration.

In this article the author explains the enormity of climate change, impacts and related energy choices to tackle the greenhouse emissions. The topics discussed includes impact of greenhouse gas emissions from energy production on environmental changes. (From abstract).

The article looks at the impacts of climate change on ecosystems, plants, animals and other aspects of daily life in New York. (From abstract).