Kresge Auditorium, Visual Arts Center, Bowdoin College, Brunswick ME 

Featuring Professor Catherine Besteman (Colby College) and Ph.D. Candidate Jarrett Martin Drake (Harvard University) 

Moderated by Professor Bianca Williams 

Activist scholars Jarrett Martin Drake and Catherine Besteman will hold a public discussion on how the histories of carcerality throughout the U.S., Somalia, and South Africa inform oppressive networks of surveillance and security and influence present-day organizing towards abolition.

The teach-in opens the new Parable Path Maine series “Are There Any Rights I’m Entitled To?” Carceration and Liberatory Futures.

Incarceration, decarceration, containment, liberation…

This exciting and informative series brings together local, national, and internationally renowned artists, activists, and scholars for a deep reflection on the impact of carcerality on our social well-being. Learning and sharing through music, film, poetry, and deep dialogue, the community can parse the many ways ideologies and technologies of containment impact our mental, spiritual, and physical well-being and prompt us to consider ways we can envision and realize liberatory futures.

A continuation of Parable Path Maine (PPM), led by former McKeen Visiting Fellow, Toshi Reagon (2022-2023), this series follows the well-attended events Reagon, Judith Casselberry, and the PPM team organized last year on Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower” (including a sold-out Merrill Auditorium event). As a result of increasing attention to the prison industrial complex and police violence, discussions about mass incarceration have been plentiful in mainstream media and on college campuses in recent years. Through film, performance, and discussion, acclaimed artists Reagon and Liza Jessie Peterson will engage Bowdoin, Brunswick, and Portland-area communities in a deep reflection on the impact of carcerality on our social well-being. With this series of events, we seek to continue building bridges between the College and wider mid-coast communities, using arts, education, and deep discussion as problem-solving tools.

Events co-sponsored by Maine Humanities Council, the Charles F. Adams Lectureship Fund, and the Departments of Africana Studies and Anthropology and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at Bowdoin College in collaboration with Maine Inside Out and Mechanics’ Hall.