Professor Reiko Hillyer (History, Lewis & Clark College) will give a lecture on her recent book, A Wall Is Just a Wall: The Permeability of the Prison in the Twentieth-Century United States. Published by Duke University Press, the book "focuses on gubernatorial clemency, furlough, and conjugal visits to examine the origins and decline of practices that allowed incarcerated people to transcend prison boundaries. Illuminating prisoners’ lived experiences as they suffered, critiqued, survived, and resisted changing penal practices, she shows that the current impermeability of the prison is a recent, uneven, and contested phenomenon. By tracking the 'thickening' of prison walls, Hillyer historicizes changing ideas of risk, the growing bipartisan acceptance of permanent exile and fixing the convicted at the moment of their crime as a form of punishment, and prisoners’ efforts to resist." This talk will be followed by a Q&A session.

This event is sponsored by the Crime, Law, and Justice Studies and the Andrew W. Mellon Humanities for All Time.