Literature Inside The Tree: Teaching The Tempest in The Bahamas Department of Correctional Services Facility at Fox Hill

Philip Smith

Abstract


This paper seeks to assess the utility of a Shakespeare Behind Bars programme at The Bahamas Department of Correctional Services Facility at Fox Hill. It argues that, consistent with Kidd and Castano’s (2013) findings, students engaged in literary analysis practice ”Theory of Mind” and cultivate the means to narrate their own history. Students, we found, refracted their life experience to the play, reading the text in terms of social ostracism, the influences of their life course, imprisonment, and reform. They tended to relate most closely to those characters whom they saw as having learned from incarceration and who were committed to a new life course. Their insights provided a perspective on the play to which we instructors would not otherwise have had access.

Keywords


Shakespeare; Prison theatre; Prisoners - Books and reading

Full Text:

PDF Full text

References


Agard, J. (1994). Prospero Caliban cricket. Massachusetts Review, 35, 546-548. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25090559

Atwood, M. (2016). Hag seed. Hogarth

Barber, L. (2018, February 2). Shakespeare workshops in prisons are like sunshine after rain for inmates. INews. https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/shakespeare-workshops-prison/

Bate, J. (1992). The romantics on Shakespeare. Penguin Classics.

Bates, L. (2013). Shakespeare saved my life. Sourcebooks.

Bethell-Bennett, I. (2016). In the shadows of violence and trauma: The state, post-slavery and neoliberal racial constructs. In W. J. Fielding, V. C. F. Ballance, & I. G. Strachan (Eds.), Violence in The Bahamas (pp. 1-21). University of The Bahamas/Media Enterprises.

Bhatia, N. (1998). Shakespeare and the Codes of Empire in India. Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 18, 96-126. https://doi.org/10.3167/cs.2011.230306

Bloom, H. (1999). Shakespeare: The invention of the human. Riverhead Books.

Brandon, J. (2010) Other Shakespeares in Asia: An overview. In P. Trivedi & R. Miami (Eds.), Re-playing Shakespeare in Asia (pp. 21-40). Taylor & Francis.

Césaire, A. (1975). Une tempête. French & European Publications.

Dames, A., & Smith, P. (2017, October 4). Thieves: Who are they? [Paper presentation]. Our Prisoners: A Symposium, University of The Bahamas.

Fielding, W. J. (2016). Violence in the life of an inmate prior to conviction and its association with crimes against persons. In W. J. Fielding, V. C. F. Ballance, & I. G. Strachan (Eds.), Violence in The Bahamas (pp. 205-220). University of The Bahamas/Media Enterprises.

Folger Shakespeare Library. (2015, November 4). Shakespeare in the Caribbean [audio podcast]. http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/caribbean

Hopkinson, N. (2012). Shift: Report from Planet Midnight. PM Press.

Johnson, P. (2016). Violence in schools. In W. J. Fielding, V. C. F. Ballance, & I. G. Strachan (Eds.), Violence in The Bahamas (pp. 113-134). University of The Bahamas/Media Enterprises.

Kennedy, D. (1993). Introduction: Shakespeare without his language. In D. Kennedy (Ed.), Foreign Shakespeare: Contemporary performance (pp. 1-17). Cambridge University Press.

Kidd, D. C., & Castano, E. (2013). Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science, 342 (6156), 377-380. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239918

Loomba, A. (2002). Shakespeare, race, and colonialism. Oxford University Press.

Minnis, J., Symonette, E., Stevenson, M., Pintard-Newry, Y., & Gibson, T. (2016). Who is in Prison? In W. Fielding, V. Ballance, & I. G. Strachan (Eds.), Violence in The Bahamas (pp. 181-204). University of The Bahamas/Media Enterprises.

Nunez, E. (2006). Prospero's daughter. Akashic Books.

Philomath Film. (2005). Shakespeare behind bars. https://www.shakespearebehindbars.org/documentary/

Pintard-Newry, Y., & Parker, Q. (2017, October 4). Family lives of inmates [Paper presentation]. Our Prisoners: A symposium, University of The Bahamas.

Scott-Douglass, A. (2007). Shakespeare inside: The Bard behind bars. Continuum.

Shakespeare, W. (2005). The Oxford Shakespeare: The complete works. Oxford University Press.

Shakespeare Behind Bars. (2018). Kentucky Department of Corrections, Luther Luckett Correctional Complex, LaGrange, KY. https://www.shakespearebehindbars.org/programmes/kentucky/llcc/

Shamay-Tsoory, H. H., Aharon-Peretz J., & Levkovitz, Y. (2010). The role of the orbitofrontal cortex in affective theory of mind deficits in criminal offenders with psychopathic tendencies. Cortex, 46(5), 668-77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2009.04.008

Smith, P. (2017a). “Upon this blasted heath”: Macbeth before and after the hurricane. The International Journal of Bahamian Studies, 23, 40-48. https://doi.org/10.15362/ijbs.v23i0.279

Smith, P. (2017b). Margaret Atwood’s Tempests: Critiques of Shakespearean Essentialism in Bodily Harm and Hag-Seed. Margaret Atwood Studies Journal, 11. https://atwoodsociety.org/volume-11-table-of-contents/

Stevenson, M. (2016). I too grew up poor. In W. J. Fielding, V. C. F. Ballance, & I. G. Strachan (Eds.), Violence in The Bahamas (pp. 221-237). University of The Bahamas/Media Enterprises.

Symonette, E. (2016). Inmate perceptions of their re-entry into Bahamian society. In W. J. Fielding, V. C. F. Ballance, & I. G. Strachan (Eds.), Violence in The Bahamas (pp. 239-250). University of The Bahamas/Media Enterprises.

Taylor, G. (1989). Reinventing Shakespeare: A cultural history from the Restoration to the present. Widenfeld & Nicholson.

Tennenhouse, L. (2010). Power on display: The politics of Shakespeare's genres. Routledge.

Vaughan, A. T., & Vaughan, V. M. (1991). Shakespeare’s Caliban. Cambridge University Press.

Wilcox, A. (2012, December 18). Prison theater transforms inmates. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/12/18/prison-could-be-productive/prison-theater-transforms-inmates

Yachnin, P. E., & Slights, J. (2009). Shakespeare and character: Theory, history, performance, and theatrical persons. Palgrave Macmillan.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15362/ijbs.v24i0.306

Copyright (c) 2018 Philip Smith