"Security Here is Not Safe": Violence, Punishment, and Space in the Contemporary US Penitentiary

The US penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, was retrofitted in 2008 to offer the country's first federal Special Management Unit (SMU) program of its kind. This model SMU is designed for federal inmates from around the country identified as the most intractably troublesome, and features double-celling of inmates in tiny spaces, in 23-hour or 24-hour a day lockdown, requiring them to pass through a two-year program of readjustment. These spatial tactics, and the philosophy of punishment underlying them, contrast with the modern reform ideals upon which the prison was designed and built in 1932. The SMU represents the latest punitive phase in American penology, one that neither simply eliminates men as in the premodern spectacle, nor creates the docile, rehabilitated bodies of the modern panopticon; rather, it is a late-modern structure that produces only fear, terror, violence, and death. This SMU represents the latest of the late-modern prisons, similar to other supermax facilities in the US but offering its own unique system of punishment as well. While the prison exists within the system of American law and jurisprudence, it also manifests features of Agamben's lawless, camp-like space that emerges during a state of exception, exempt from outside scrutiny with inmate treatment typically beyond the scope of the law

Dads, Daughters, And Disney: The Historical Trajectory Of Fairy Tale Fathers And Daughters

In my thesis I use a historical approach to close readings of fairy tale texts and movies to study the evolution of fathers, daughters, and marriage within three landmark tales: ¿Cinderella,¿ ¿Sleeping Beauty,¿ and ¿Snow White.¿ Using the works of Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and Walt Disney and his cohort of animators, I trace the historical trajectory of these three elements, analyzing both the ways they change and develop as history progresses as well as the ways they remain consistent. Through close and comparative readings of primary sources and films, I demonstrate the power structures and familial dynamics evident through the interactions of fathers and daughters. Specifically, I show that through the weakness and ineptitude of fairy tale fathers, fairy tale daughters are able to gain power, authority, and autonomy by using magic and marriage to navigate patriarchal systems. The work I have done is important because it explores how each tale is a product of the story before it and thus that in order for these tales to continue to survive the test of time, we must not only recognize the validity of the academic merit of the Disney stories, but also remember them and others as we forge new paths in the stories we use to teach both children and parents. Specifically, this work is important because it explores the historical trend evident in the evolving relationships between fathers and daughters. This relationship ultimately it reveals the deep underlying need for family within all of us.