Emily Allen-Hornblower, Rutgers University
Over the last 8 years, I have been teaching college-level courses in Classics to incarcerated men in medium and maximum-security prisons. Our discussions, particularly regarding Homer and Greek tragedy, have invariably proven to be a springboard for addressing the burning social, ethical and human issues that pertain to these men’s lives before, during and after their release from prison. Since 2019, I have partnered with some of my formerly incarcerated students to open these discussions to the broader public, including with an outreach project, “The public face of emotions: public engagement, prison and the emotions in our lives.” Together with a wide range of audiences, we watch selected excerpts of Greek tragedies performed by theater actors as a starting point for conversations about the plays’ significance for my interlocutors as mass incarceration survivors. A talk-back session with the audience follows our conversations.
In my paper, I discuss a new phase of our public-facing work. In cooperation with the Boys and Girls Club and similar institutions, my formerly incarcerated partners and I are adding a participatory, creative component to our communal conversations by involving underserved populations, including youth, in the artistic performance and interpretation of the choruses of ancient drama, as well as in the dialogues they prompt. We are also inviting experts on trauma and addiction to take part in our events so that, in dialogue with them, we can better harness the power of tragic choruses to serve as a channel for exploring such central notions as finding a sense of one’s identity; self-love vs. self-loathing; the role of stigma and labeling in triggering the latter; fitting in vs. belonging; and the challenges to mental health and to our entire social fabric that stem from individuals’ disconnection and isolation from society, both of which often result in incarceration and inevitably get further exacerbated by it. We present a counter-narrative to punitive criminal justice, emphasizing the devastating suffering and destruction wrought by incarceration on individuals, families and communities, and foregrounding the shared humanity of all.