Solitary Confinement

Social Death and Its Afterlives

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Phenomenology, Reference & Language, Law, Criminal law, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Crimes & Criminals, Criminology
Cover of the book Solitary Confinement by Lisa Guenther, University of Minnesota Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Lisa Guenther ISBN: 9780816686278
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press Publication: August 1, 2013
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press Language: English
Author: Lisa Guenther
ISBN: 9780816686278
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication: August 1, 2013
Imprint: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Language: English

Prolonged solitary confinement has become a widespread and standard practice in U.S. prisons—even though it consistently drives healthy prisoners insane, makes the mentally ill sicker, and, according to the testimony of prisoners, threatens to reduce life to a living death. In this profoundly important and original book, Lisa Guenther examines the death-in-life experience of solitary confinement in America from the early nineteenth century to today’s supermax prisons. Documenting how solitary confinement undermines prisoners’ sense of identity and their ability to understand the world, Guenther demonstrates the real effects of forcibly isolating a person for weeks, months, or years.

Drawing on the testimony of prisoners and the work of philosophers and social activists from Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to Frantz Fanon and Angela Davis, the author defines solitary confinement as a kind of social death. It argues that isolation exposes the relational structure of being by showing what happens when that structure is abused—when prisoners are deprived of the concrete relations with others on which our existence as sense-making creatures depends. Solitary confinement is beyond a form of racial or political violence; it is an assault on being.

A searing and unforgettable indictment, Solitary Confinement reveals what the devastation wrought by the torture of solitary confinement tells us about what it means to be human—and why humanity is so often destroyed when we separate prisoners from all other people.

Prolonged solitary confinement has become a widespread and standard practice in U.S. prisons—even though it consistently drives healthy prisoners insane, makes the mentally ill sicker, and, according to the testimony of prisoners, threatens to reduce life to a living death. In this profoundly important and original book, Lisa Guenther examines the death-in-life experience of solitary confinement in America from the early nineteenth century to today’s supermax prisons. Documenting how solitary confinement undermines prisoners’ sense of identity and their ability to understand the world, Guenther demonstrates the real effects of forcibly isolating a person for weeks, months, or years.

Drawing on the testimony of prisoners and the work of philosophers and social activists from Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to Frantz Fanon and Angela Davis, the author defines solitary confinement as a kind of social death. It argues that isolation exposes the relational structure of being by showing what happens when that structure is abused—when prisoners are deprived of the concrete relations with others on which our existence as sense-making creatures depends. Solitary confinement is beyond a form of racial or political violence; it is an assault on being.

A searing and unforgettable indictment, Solitary Confinement reveals what the devastation wrought by the torture of solitary confinement tells us about what it means to be human—and why humanity is so often destroyed when we separate prisoners from all other people.

More books from University of Minnesota Press

Cover of the book Comparative Textual Media by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Machine by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Laurentian Divide by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Stealing Thunder by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book The Denial of Antiblackness by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Hakon of Rogen's Saga by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Transhumanism by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Corporate Sovereignty by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Foucault on Painting by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Ghostly Matters by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Mechademia 4 by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Politics the Wellstone Way by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book The Art of Protest by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Improper Life by Lisa Guenther
Cover of the book Struggle and Utopia at the End Times of Philosophy by Lisa Guenther
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy