Working in the Belly of the Beast: the Productive Intellectual Labor of Us Prison Writers, 1929-2007
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WORKING IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST: THE PRODUCTIVE INTELLECTUAL LABOR OF US PRISON WRITERS, 1929-2007 by Nathaniel Zachery Heggins Bryant BA, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2005 MA, University of Tennessee, 2008 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2014 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Nathaniel Zachery Heggins Bryant It was defended on May 19, 2014 and approved by Sabine von Dirke, Associate Professor, Department of German Nicholas Coles, Associate Professor, Department of English David Bartholomae, Professor, Department of English Dissertation Advisor: Philip Smith, Associate Professor, Department of English ii Copyright © by Nathaniel Zachery Heggins Bryant 2014 iii WORKING IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST: THE PRODUCTIVE INTELLECTUAL LABOR OF US PRISON WRITERS, 1929-2007 Nathaniel Zachery Heggins Bryant, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2014 This dissertation seeks to revise and expand notions of US prison writing beyond the normative categories of “literature” by examining the compositional and rhetorical efforts of US prison writers working from 1929 to 2007. I situate certain modes, discourses, and texts produced by prisoners—scientific research, jailhouse legal work, letter-writing, revolutionary polemic, and testimonial writing—within a larger rubric of what I call “productive intellectual labor.” The project draws on Marxist debates to define each part of that term and employs the work of Michel Foucault to contextualize prevailing historical notions regarding penal labor, the evolution of punishment, and discursive trends of those writing back to power. I argue that all these forms of writing are legitimate forms of intellectual labor, produced in an institution historically marked by convict illiteracy and under-education on the one hand and powerful administrative and state discourses on the other. I situate this writing to the other kinds of labor, such as manual and industrial work, that are routinely undertaken by prisoners; I do so to consider the effects of mandatory, coercive prison-labor schemes and the value derived from autonomously assumed labor that is experienced by imprisoned intellectual laborers. The project shows how the work of three 20th century prison writers (Robert Stroud, Caryl Chessman, and George Jackson) and the anthologies Couldn’t Keep it to Myself and I’ll Fly Away (published by women prison writers incarcerated at York Correctional Institution in Connecticut) demonstrate the many ways that prisoners use non-literary forms of writing to produce counter-narratives and iv discourses about themselves; fight against the oppressive, stultifying effects of incarceration; and critique administrative and state penal practices, among many other motives for writing. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................... X 1.0 INTRODUCTION: WORKING AND WRITING IN US PRISONS...................... 1 1.1 A QUESTION OF DEFENSIBLE FLOGGING? ............................................ 1 1.2 PRISON WRITERS AS HOMO FABER? PRISON WRTING AS INTELLECTUAL LABOR ............................................................................................... 11 1.3 WHY PRODUCTIVITY? AND THE CONTOURS OF INTELLECTUAL LABOR… ............................................................................................................................ 23 1.3.1 PRODUCTIVITY .......................................................................................... 23 1.3.2 INTELLECTUAL LABOR .......................................................................... 28 1.4 CHAPTERS AT A GLANCE ........................................................................... 36 1.5 AGAINST PRISON “LITERATURE”............................................................ 43 2.0 INTERCHAPTER ONE: THE BLACK FLOWER OF SOCIETY: PRISON AS THE QUINTESSENTIAL AMERICAN INSTITUTION ...................................................... 57 2.1 RECYCLING BENJAMIN RUSH’S GOTHIC PENAL IMAGINARY ..... 57 2.2 WHY PENAL LABOR?.................................................................................... 69 3.0 CHAPTER ONE: SO MANY BIRDS IN A CAGE: PRISON ORNITHOLOGY AS INTELLECTUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN ROBERT STROUD’S DIGEST ON THE DISEASES OF BIRDS ................................................................................................................ 78 vi 3.1 INTRODUCING THE BIRDMAN .................................................................. 78 3.2 STROUD’S “LONGUE DURÉE” .................................................................... 85 3.3 THE DIGEST GENRE: WORKING AGAINST EXPECTATIONS, IN AND OUTSIDE THE MARGINS .............................................................................................. 97 3.4 MERCY KILLINGS, LESBIAN CANARIES, AND AVIAN PSYCHOLOGY: THE KALEIDOSCOPIC CHARACTER OF ROBERT STROUD IN THE DIGEST ............................................................................................................... 107 3.5 ON THE QUESTION OF “REHABILITATIVE” LABOR-VALUE ........ 118 3.6 CONCLUSION: OF PELICANS AND ALBATROSSES ........................... 125 4.0 CHAPTER TWO: OF FRIVOLITY AND CONTEMPT OF COURT: CARYL CHESSMAN AND THE LABOR-VALUE OF LEGAL SELF-REPRESENTATION AND PRISONER LITIGATION ...................................................................................................... 130 4.1 THE RED LIGHT BANDIT ........................................................................... 130 4.2 A FOOL FOR A CLIENT: THE ORIGINAL TRIAL ................................ 135 4.3 ADDRESSING THE SUPREME COURT: READING CHESSMAN’S APPELLATE PETITIONS ............................................................................................. 143 4.4 THE “CONTEMPTUOUS” POLITICS OF LEARNING LEGAL LANGUAGE AND THE LABOR VALUE OF MERITLESS LITIGATION ........... 161 4.5 CONCLUSION: CHESSMAN’S DIALETICAL RELATIONSHIP TO THE LAW…… ........................................................................................................................... 182 5.0 INTERCHAPTER TWO: THE PRISONERS’ RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND CONTEMPORARY CONTEXTS FOR THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX........ 187 5.1 THE RISE AND FALL OF THE PRISONERS’ RIGHTS MOVEMENT 187 vii 5.2 TOWARD THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX ............................... 192 6.0 CHAPTER THREE: TEACHING IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST: GEORGE JACKSON’S EPISTOLARY PEDAGOGY ........................................................................... 202 6.1 BLACK REVOLUTION IN US PRISONS ................................................... 202 6.2 BLACK PANTHER PEDAGOGIES ............................................................. 209 6.3 CONTOURS OF SOLEDAD BROTHER ...................................................... 220 6.4 GEORGE JACKSON ON EDUCATION ..................................................... 229 6.5 TOWARD JACKSON’S EPISTOLARY PEDAGOGY .............................. 236 6.6 CONCLUSION: JONATHAN JACKSON AS INTERLOCUTOR, STUDENT, COMRADE, AND “ALTER-EGO” .......................................................... 249 7.0 CHAPTER FOUR: REVISING WOMEN IN THE CONCRETE WOMB: TESTIMONIAL WRITING AND EMOTIONAL LABOR IN COULDN’T KEEP IT TO MYSELF AND I’LL FLY AWAY ............................................................................................. 258 7.1 THE CONCRETE WOMB ............................................................................. 258 7.2 HISTORICAL CONTEXTS FOR THE INCARCERATION OF WOMEN… ........................................................................................................................ 267 7.3 COULDN’T KEEP IT TO MYSELF AND I’LL FLY AWAY ........................ 280 7.4 FEMINIST NOTIONS OF LABOR: REVISING SELF-IMAGES AS EMOTIONAL LITERACIES ......................................................................................... 291 7.4.1 Social Provisioning and the “Total Social Organisation of Labour” ...... 291 7.4.2 Emotional Literacy ...................................................................................... 294 7.5 REVISING BODIES IN PRISON: A CLOSE READING OF “HAIR CHRONICLES” AND “FAITH, POWER, AND PANTS” .......................................... 301 viii 7.5.1 Runaway Dreads .......................................................................................... 305 7.5.2 A Question of Pants ..................................................................................... 310 7.6 CONCLUSION: NAVIGATING ANTI-WORK PERSPECTIVES ON WORKING WOMEN ...................................................................................................... 321 8.0 CONCLUSION: AGAINST REHABILITATION (THE FUTURE PROJECT) 327 8.1 RETROSPECTION ON THE DISSERTATION ......................................... 327 8.2 ALTHUSSER’S ANTIHUMANISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF REHABILITATION ........................................................................................................ 330 8.3 NEW CHAPTERS AT A GLANCE .............................................................. 340 8.4 GUARD LIT: “A PRISON TERM IN EIGHT-HOUR SHIFTS” .............. 343 8.5 MALCOLM BRALY AND ON THE YARD ................................................. 349 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 352 ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS