My research agenda is gathered around the ethical, jurisprudential, and socio-political questions that come with responding to people victimized by traumatic harm. I offer interpersonal and institutional responses that support recovery and redress for traumatized persons. I address three overlapping fields of analysis: the philosophical implications of traumatic experience, the meaning and nature of group identity, and redress for criminal acts and historical injustices. My work in these areas motivates a reparative notion of justice, which is applicable to questions of responsibility within philosophical engagements with criminal law and group identity. Supervisors: Lucius T. Outlaw (Jr.)
This article offers a model of collective responsibility that arises out of group implication in ... more This article offers a model of collective responsibility that arises out of group implication in the persistent injustices of racism and colonialism. It engages with a case study of Jewish refugees who arrived in the Americas in the aftermath of the 1492 Spanish Edict of Expulsion. There, it identifies a strategy of survival grounded in identification with white Christians at the top of the colonial hierarchy and disidentification with Black and Native peoples at the bottom. This identification yielded benefits for colonial Jews and those (the author included) who inherit their place in the colonial racial hierarchy. These benefits were at the expense of Black and Native peoples in the Americas. The article highlights the relational harms—to others and themselves—inherent in group complicity with white supremacy. It concludes by outlining the forms of collective responsibility that could counteract these harms and create relationality beyond white supremacy.
During the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota, USA/Turtle Island, a group of military veteran... more During the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota, USA/Turtle Island, a group of military veterans knelt in front of Oceti Sakowin Elders asking forgiveness for centuries of settler colonial military ventures in Oceti Sakowin Territory. Leonard Crow Dog forgave them and immediately demanded respect for Native Nations throughout the U.S. Lacking such respect, he said, Native people will cease paying taxes. Crow Dog’s post-forgiveness remarks speak to the political context of the military veterans’ request: They seek collective forgiveness amidst ongoing occupation and harms committed by the collective they represent. In this chapter, I examine this case study and argue that ongoing harm undermines requests for forgiveness on behalf of collectives. I look to the work of Glen Coultard, Waziyatawin, and Leanne Simpson to consider what a responsible request for collective forgiveness would entail.
(in Geoffrey Adelsberg, Lisa Guenther, and Scott Zeman, eds. Death and Other Penalties: Philosoph... more (in Geoffrey Adelsberg, Lisa Guenther, and Scott Zeman, eds. Death and Other Penalties: Philosophy in a Time of Mass Incarceration. Fordham U. Press, 2015)
One of the most notable accomplishments of queer studies has been in showing how various regimes of normativity are interconnected and mutually constitutive—how reproductive futurity and heteronormativity are articulated in relation to racialization, (dis)ability, and other socially structuring and institutionally enforced axes of difference—in such a way that much work done under the rubric of queer studies today takes for granted that queerness can be defined as against (and as other to) normativity writ large. Perhaps as a consequence of such success, the relationship between queerness and antinormativity can become vaguely tautological—what is queer is antinormative; what is antinormative is queer—and so elastic that useful distinctions between how different normativities get enforced in practice can begin to fade. Conversely, what is now being called critical prison studies, as a field, has had relatively little to say about trans/queer people, or how queer theory and/or politics might differently mitigate its optics. Here then, we have gathered to think about the uses and limits of both queer theory and abolitionist analysis in our work toward collective liberation.
Death and Other Penalties: Philosophy in a Time of Mass Incarceration , Apr 2015
This essay draws on the work of Jacques Derrida and Angela Y. Davis towards a philosophical resis... more This essay draws on the work of Jacques Derrida and Angela Y. Davis towards a philosophical resistance to the death penalty in the U.S. I find promise in Derrida’s claim that resistance to the death penalty ought to contest a political structure that founds itself on having the power to decide life and death, but I move beyond Derrida’s desire to consider the abolition of the death penalty without engaging with the particular histories and geographies of European colonialism. I offer a critique of Derrida’s recently published work on the death penalty by engaging with the work of Davis and argue that discussions of state violence in nations that inherit European forms of sovereignty must take seriously the racist violence on which those sovereign powers rely.
Motivated by a conviction that mass incarceration and state execution are among the most importan... more Motivated by a conviction that mass incarceration and state execution are among the most important ethical and political problems of our time, the contributors to this volume come together from a diverse range of backgrounds to analyze, critique, and envision alternatives to the injustices of the U.S. prison system, with recourse to deconstruction, phenomenology, critical race theory, feminism, queer theory, and disability studies. They engage with the hyper-incarceration of people of color, the incomplete abolition of slavery, the exploitation of prisoners as workers and as "raw material" for the prison industrial complex, the intensive confinement of prisoners in supermax units, and the complexities of capital punishment in an age of abolition.
Contents
Introduction: Death and Other Penalties
Geoffrey Adelsberg, Lisa Guenther, and Scott Zeman
Part I. Legacies of Slavery
Excavating the Sedimentations of Slavery: The Unfinished Project of American Abolition
Brady Heiner
From Commodity Fetishism to Prison Fetishism: Slavery, Convict-leasing, and the Ideological Productions of Incarceration
James Manos
Maroon Philosophy: An Interview with Russell Maroon Shoatz
Russell Maroon Shoatz
Part II. Death Penalties
In Reality-from the Row
Derrick Quintero
Inheritances of the Death Penalty: American Racism and Derrida's Theologico-Political Sovereignty
Geoffrey Adelsberg
Making Death a Penalty: Or, Making "Good" Death a "Good" Penalty
Kelly Oliver
Death Penalty Abolition in Neoliberal Times: The SAFE California Act and the Nexus of Savings and Security
Andrew Dilts
On the Inviolability of Human Life
Julia Kristeva (translated by Lisa Walsh)
Part III. Rethinking Power and Responsibility
Punishment, Desert, and Equality: A Levinasian Analysis
Benjamin S. Yost
Prisons and Palliative Politics
Ami Harbin
Sovereignty, Community, and the Incarceration of Immigrants
Matt S. Whitt
Without the Right to Exist: Mass Incarceration and National Security
Andrea Smith
Prison Abolition and a Culture of Sexual Difference
Sarah Tyson
Part IV. Isolation and Resistance
Statement on Solitary Confinement
Abu Ali Abdur'Rahman
The Violence of the Supermax: Toward a Phenomenological Aesthetics of Prison Space
Adrian Switzer
Prison and the Subject of Resistance: A Levinasian Inquiry
Shokoufeh Sakhi
Critical Theory, Queer Resistance, and the Ends of Capture
Liat Ben-Moshe, Che Gossett, Nick Mitchell, and Eric A. Stanley
This article offers a model of collective responsibility that arises out of group implication in ... more This article offers a model of collective responsibility that arises out of group implication in the persistent injustices of racism and colonialism. It engages with a case study of Jewish refugees who arrived in the Americas in the aftermath of the 1492 Spanish Edict of Expulsion. There, it identifies a strategy of survival grounded in identification with white Christians at the top of the colonial hierarchy and disidentification with Black and Native peoples at the bottom. This identification yielded benefits for colonial Jews and those (the author included) who inherit their place in the colonial racial hierarchy. These benefits were at the expense of Black and Native peoples in the Americas. The article highlights the relational harms—to others and themselves—inherent in group complicity with white supremacy. It concludes by outlining the forms of collective responsibility that could counteract these harms and create relationality beyond white supremacy.
During the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota, USA/Turtle Island, a group of military veteran... more During the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota, USA/Turtle Island, a group of military veterans knelt in front of Oceti Sakowin Elders asking forgiveness for centuries of settler colonial military ventures in Oceti Sakowin Territory. Leonard Crow Dog forgave them and immediately demanded respect for Native Nations throughout the U.S. Lacking such respect, he said, Native people will cease paying taxes. Crow Dog’s post-forgiveness remarks speak to the political context of the military veterans’ request: They seek collective forgiveness amidst ongoing occupation and harms committed by the collective they represent. In this chapter, I examine this case study and argue that ongoing harm undermines requests for forgiveness on behalf of collectives. I look to the work of Glen Coultard, Waziyatawin, and Leanne Simpson to consider what a responsible request for collective forgiveness would entail.
(in Geoffrey Adelsberg, Lisa Guenther, and Scott Zeman, eds. Death and Other Penalties: Philosoph... more (in Geoffrey Adelsberg, Lisa Guenther, and Scott Zeman, eds. Death and Other Penalties: Philosophy in a Time of Mass Incarceration. Fordham U. Press, 2015)
One of the most notable accomplishments of queer studies has been in showing how various regimes of normativity are interconnected and mutually constitutive—how reproductive futurity and heteronormativity are articulated in relation to racialization, (dis)ability, and other socially structuring and institutionally enforced axes of difference—in such a way that much work done under the rubric of queer studies today takes for granted that queerness can be defined as against (and as other to) normativity writ large. Perhaps as a consequence of such success, the relationship between queerness and antinormativity can become vaguely tautological—what is queer is antinormative; what is antinormative is queer—and so elastic that useful distinctions between how different normativities get enforced in practice can begin to fade. Conversely, what is now being called critical prison studies, as a field, has had relatively little to say about trans/queer people, or how queer theory and/or politics might differently mitigate its optics. Here then, we have gathered to think about the uses and limits of both queer theory and abolitionist analysis in our work toward collective liberation.
Death and Other Penalties: Philosophy in a Time of Mass Incarceration , Apr 2015
This essay draws on the work of Jacques Derrida and Angela Y. Davis towards a philosophical resis... more This essay draws on the work of Jacques Derrida and Angela Y. Davis towards a philosophical resistance to the death penalty in the U.S. I find promise in Derrida’s claim that resistance to the death penalty ought to contest a political structure that founds itself on having the power to decide life and death, but I move beyond Derrida’s desire to consider the abolition of the death penalty without engaging with the particular histories and geographies of European colonialism. I offer a critique of Derrida’s recently published work on the death penalty by engaging with the work of Davis and argue that discussions of state violence in nations that inherit European forms of sovereignty must take seriously the racist violence on which those sovereign powers rely.
Motivated by a conviction that mass incarceration and state execution are among the most importan... more Motivated by a conviction that mass incarceration and state execution are among the most important ethical and political problems of our time, the contributors to this volume come together from a diverse range of backgrounds to analyze, critique, and envision alternatives to the injustices of the U.S. prison system, with recourse to deconstruction, phenomenology, critical race theory, feminism, queer theory, and disability studies. They engage with the hyper-incarceration of people of color, the incomplete abolition of slavery, the exploitation of prisoners as workers and as "raw material" for the prison industrial complex, the intensive confinement of prisoners in supermax units, and the complexities of capital punishment in an age of abolition.
Contents
Introduction: Death and Other Penalties
Geoffrey Adelsberg, Lisa Guenther, and Scott Zeman
Part I. Legacies of Slavery
Excavating the Sedimentations of Slavery: The Unfinished Project of American Abolition
Brady Heiner
From Commodity Fetishism to Prison Fetishism: Slavery, Convict-leasing, and the Ideological Productions of Incarceration
James Manos
Maroon Philosophy: An Interview with Russell Maroon Shoatz
Russell Maroon Shoatz
Part II. Death Penalties
In Reality-from the Row
Derrick Quintero
Inheritances of the Death Penalty: American Racism and Derrida's Theologico-Political Sovereignty
Geoffrey Adelsberg
Making Death a Penalty: Or, Making "Good" Death a "Good" Penalty
Kelly Oliver
Death Penalty Abolition in Neoliberal Times: The SAFE California Act and the Nexus of Savings and Security
Andrew Dilts
On the Inviolability of Human Life
Julia Kristeva (translated by Lisa Walsh)
Part III. Rethinking Power and Responsibility
Punishment, Desert, and Equality: A Levinasian Analysis
Benjamin S. Yost
Prisons and Palliative Politics
Ami Harbin
Sovereignty, Community, and the Incarceration of Immigrants
Matt S. Whitt
Without the Right to Exist: Mass Incarceration and National Security
Andrea Smith
Prison Abolition and a Culture of Sexual Difference
Sarah Tyson
Part IV. Isolation and Resistance
Statement on Solitary Confinement
Abu Ali Abdur'Rahman
The Violence of the Supermax: Toward a Phenomenological Aesthetics of Prison Space
Adrian Switzer
Prison and the Subject of Resistance: A Levinasian Inquiry
Shokoufeh Sakhi
Critical Theory, Queer Resistance, and the Ends of Capture
Liat Ben-Moshe, Che Gossett, Nick Mitchell, and Eric A. Stanley
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One of the most notable accomplishments of queer studies has been in showing how various regimes of normativity are interconnected and mutually constitutive—how reproductive futurity and heteronormativity are articulated in relation to racialization, (dis)ability, and other socially structuring and institutionally enforced axes of difference—in such a way that much work done under the rubric of queer studies today takes for granted that queerness can be defined as against (and as other to) normativity writ large. Perhaps as a consequence of such success, the relationship between queerness and antinormativity can become vaguely tautological—what is queer is antinormative; what is antinormative is queer—and so elastic that useful distinctions between how different normativities get enforced in practice can begin to fade. Conversely, what is now being called critical prison studies, as a field, has had relatively little to say about trans/queer people, or how queer theory and/or politics might differently mitigate its optics. Here then, we have gathered to think about the uses and limits of both queer theory and abolitionist analysis in our work toward collective liberation.
Contents
Introduction: Death and Other Penalties
Geoffrey Adelsberg, Lisa Guenther, and Scott Zeman
Part I. Legacies of Slavery
Excavating the Sedimentations of Slavery: The Unfinished Project of American Abolition
Brady Heiner
From Commodity Fetishism to Prison Fetishism: Slavery, Convict-leasing, and the Ideological Productions of Incarceration
James Manos
Maroon Philosophy: An Interview with Russell Maroon Shoatz
Russell Maroon Shoatz
Part II. Death Penalties
In Reality-from the Row
Derrick Quintero
Inheritances of the Death Penalty: American Racism and Derrida's Theologico-Political Sovereignty
Geoffrey Adelsberg
Making Death a Penalty: Or, Making "Good" Death a "Good" Penalty
Kelly Oliver
Death Penalty Abolition in Neoliberal Times: The SAFE California Act and the Nexus of Savings and Security
Andrew Dilts
On the Inviolability of Human Life
Julia Kristeva (translated by Lisa Walsh)
Part III. Rethinking Power and Responsibility
Punishment, Desert, and Equality: A Levinasian Analysis
Benjamin S. Yost
Prisons and Palliative Politics
Ami Harbin
Sovereignty, Community, and the Incarceration of Immigrants
Matt S. Whitt
Without the Right to Exist: Mass Incarceration and National Security
Andrea Smith
Prison Abolition and a Culture of Sexual Difference
Sarah Tyson
Part IV. Isolation and Resistance
Statement on Solitary Confinement
Abu Ali Abdur'Rahman
The Violence of the Supermax: Toward a Phenomenological Aesthetics of Prison Space
Adrian Switzer
Prison and the Subject of Resistance: A Levinasian Inquiry
Shokoufeh Sakhi
Critical Theory, Queer Resistance, and the Ends of Capture
Liat Ben-Moshe, Che Gossett, Nick Mitchell, and Eric A. Stanley
One of the most notable accomplishments of queer studies has been in showing how various regimes of normativity are interconnected and mutually constitutive—how reproductive futurity and heteronormativity are articulated in relation to racialization, (dis)ability, and other socially structuring and institutionally enforced axes of difference—in such a way that much work done under the rubric of queer studies today takes for granted that queerness can be defined as against (and as other to) normativity writ large. Perhaps as a consequence of such success, the relationship between queerness and antinormativity can become vaguely tautological—what is queer is antinormative; what is antinormative is queer—and so elastic that useful distinctions between how different normativities get enforced in practice can begin to fade. Conversely, what is now being called critical prison studies, as a field, has had relatively little to say about trans/queer people, or how queer theory and/or politics might differently mitigate its optics. Here then, we have gathered to think about the uses and limits of both queer theory and abolitionist analysis in our work toward collective liberation.
Contents
Introduction: Death and Other Penalties
Geoffrey Adelsberg, Lisa Guenther, and Scott Zeman
Part I. Legacies of Slavery
Excavating the Sedimentations of Slavery: The Unfinished Project of American Abolition
Brady Heiner
From Commodity Fetishism to Prison Fetishism: Slavery, Convict-leasing, and the Ideological Productions of Incarceration
James Manos
Maroon Philosophy: An Interview with Russell Maroon Shoatz
Russell Maroon Shoatz
Part II. Death Penalties
In Reality-from the Row
Derrick Quintero
Inheritances of the Death Penalty: American Racism and Derrida's Theologico-Political Sovereignty
Geoffrey Adelsberg
Making Death a Penalty: Or, Making "Good" Death a "Good" Penalty
Kelly Oliver
Death Penalty Abolition in Neoliberal Times: The SAFE California Act and the Nexus of Savings and Security
Andrew Dilts
On the Inviolability of Human Life
Julia Kristeva (translated by Lisa Walsh)
Part III. Rethinking Power and Responsibility
Punishment, Desert, and Equality: A Levinasian Analysis
Benjamin S. Yost
Prisons and Palliative Politics
Ami Harbin
Sovereignty, Community, and the Incarceration of Immigrants
Matt S. Whitt
Without the Right to Exist: Mass Incarceration and National Security
Andrea Smith
Prison Abolition and a Culture of Sexual Difference
Sarah Tyson
Part IV. Isolation and Resistance
Statement on Solitary Confinement
Abu Ali Abdur'Rahman
The Violence of the Supermax: Toward a Phenomenological Aesthetics of Prison Space
Adrian Switzer
Prison and the Subject of Resistance: A Levinasian Inquiry
Shokoufeh Sakhi
Critical Theory, Queer Resistance, and the Ends of Capture
Liat Ben-Moshe, Che Gossett, Nick Mitchell, and Eric A. Stanley