CMST 3430 Culture, Crime, and Punishment

4 semester hours

This course examines cultural constructions of crime and punishment. Although the course focuses primarily on the U.S. criminal justice system, we will attend to the prison industrial complex’s global reach. Consequently, the course gives students the opportunity to examine one of the most pressing social issues of our time. We will focus our study of cultural constructions of crime and punishment in three different rhetorical cultures: public discourse, prisoners’ discourse, and prison activism discourse. These three arenas map onto the three units of the course: 1) Crime and Punishment in the Cultural Imagination; 2) Crime and Punishment in the Prisoners’ Imagination, and 3) From Criminal Justice to Transformative Justice.

Junior or senior standing required.

Majors only.

Prerequisites: CMST 1600 , CMST 1700 , CMST 2800 , and either CMST 2400 or CMST 2500 .

University Core fulfilled: Integrations: Interdisciplinary Connections.