Carceral Studies Conversations

Dr. Guy Emerson Mount explores the meaning of emancipation as it changed over time, the demands of reparations relative to repair and justice, and how the legacies of slavery and the lack of reparations has contributed to the Carceral State. Mount is an Assistant Professor of African American History at Auburn focusing on the intersection of Black transnationalism, Western modernity, and global empires. As part of his research into the lasting legacies of slavery, Prof. Mount recently co-founded the scholarly team that uncovered the University of Chicago’s historical ties to slavery. Mount currently serves as Associate Editor of Black Perspectives, the world’s largest online destination for African American history.

Dr. Dan Berger is an interdisciplinary historian focusing on critical race theory, twentieth century U.S. social movements, and critical prison studies. His research pursues a human accounting of how freedom and violence have shaped the United States in the twentieth century and continue to influence the world. Much of his work concerns the carceral state, including the diverse ways in which imprisonment has shaped social movements, racism, and American politics since World War II. In this episode, Berger helps define the Carceral State--its roots, features, and implications. Berger also explores the activism against the Carceral State and what radicals have fought for.

Professor James is a Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU Silver. Jae was born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, during a period of political and social unrest. He would ultimately migrate to the United States at ten years old with his mother in search of a better life. Yet the “American Dream,” like it is to many immigrants of color, would be more mirage than reality — the nightmare that awaited Jae — that 1 in 3 black men between 16 and 24 would be victims of what many scholars (decades later) would rather euphemistically title: “Mass Incarceration.”As a professor at NYU, he utilizes his firsthand knowledge and research to educate, train, and work with governments, community-based organizations, social workers, and advocates with social justice agendas throughout America, the Caribbean, and Africa.

Jae’s teaching philosophy is most influenced by Paulo Friere, bell hooks, and theories on critical pedagogy. Jae believes education is our greatest tool for liberation and social justice. But to use it effectively, he believes it is essential that we recognize the inherent bias within our current education paradigm. And thus create space(s) that allow for critical dialogue, co-created knowledge, and action aligned with our organizing value of social justice.

Professor Black is a citizen of Cherokee Nation and teaches and writes on American Indian history. Her first book, "Picturing Indians: Native Americans in Film, 1941-1960," looks at film as places of work and documents employment practices of both Natives and non-Natives playing Indians on screen. Her second book is a history of the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The tentative title of the book is "How to Get Away With Murder," highlighting the lack of justice for the women and their families.