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Critical Storytelling from behind Invisible Bars

Undergraduates and Inmates Write Their Way Out

Carmella J. Braniger Alex V. Miller Kathryn A. Coffey Rebekah M. Icenesse

$319.95   $256.26

Hardback

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English
Brill
20 August 2020
Critical stories are narratives that recount the writer’s experiences, situating those experiences in broader cultural contexts. In this volume of Critical Storytelling, marginalized, excluded, and oppressed peoples share insights from their liminality to help readers learn from their perspectives on living from behind invisible bars. Female inmates at Decatur’s Correctional Center and the undergraduate Millikin University students who worked with them come together to give voice to their specific histories of living from behind invisibile bars and pose important questions to the reader about inciting change for the future. Specifically, the voices in this volume seek to expose, analyze, and challenge deeply-entrenched narratives and characterizations of incarcerated women, whose histories are often marked by sexual abuse, domestic violence, poverty, PTSD, a lack of education, housing insecurity, mental illness, and substance addiction. These silenced female inmate voices need to be heard and contextualized within the larger metanarrative of prison literature. Through telling critical stories, these writers attempt to: sustain recovery from trauma, make positive changes and informed decisions, create a real sense of empowerment, strengthen their capacity to exercise personal agency, and inspire audiences to create change far outside the reaches of physical and metaphorical bars.

Contributors are: Anonymous, Soren Belle, Megan Batty, Dwight G. Brown, Jr., Sandra Brown, Kathryn Coffey, Kelly Cunningham, Paiten Hamilton, Kathlyn J. Housh, Rebekah Icenesse, Kala Keller, Jelisa Lovette, Bric Martin, Amanda Minetti, Laura Nearing, Angie Oaks, Claire Prendergast, Cara Quiett, J. M. Spence, Noah Villarreal and Alisha Walker.
Volume editor:   , , ,
Imprint:   Brill
Volume:   4
Dimensions:   Height: 235mm,  Width: 155mm, 
Weight:   446g
ISBN:   9789004441637
ISBN 10:   9004441638
Series:   Critical Storytelling
Pages:   214
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Preface Notes on Contributors Prologue  Alex V. Miller 1 A Prisoner’s Melody  Sandra Brown, Jelissa Lovette and Alisha Walker 2 Barcode  Sandra Brown 3 Caged  Jelissa Lovette 4 The Forbidden & the Prohibited  Soren Belle 5 Truth or Dare  Sandra Brown 6 The People I Met When the Sky Went Dark  Bric Martin 7 The Great Wall of Insanity  J. M. Spence 8 State of Mind  Jelissa Lovette 9 The Call  Sandra Brown 10 Pivotal Times  Angie Oakes 11 A Daughter’s Sorrow  Sandra Brown 12 Talking It out from the Inside  Cara Quiett 13 Mother-Less Child  Jelissa Lovette 14 Not Waving, Not Drowning  Sandra Brown 15 Isaac  Claire Prendergast 16 Prison  Angie Oaks 17 Love Find Me  Jelissa Lovette 18 Little Girl Lost  Angie Oakes 19 Everlasting Kiss  Jelissa Lovette 20 Backburner Bitch  Anonymous 21 Love Alive  Kala Keller 22 My Dragonfly  Laura Neering 23 Puzzle Pieces in My Eyes  Rebekah M. Icenesse 24 Piece of Me  Jelissa Lovette 25 Nothing New under the Sun  Sandra Brown 26 Living a Life with Invisible Bars  Kathlyn J. Housh 27 Where Would I Be  Jelissa Lovette 28 My Odyssey  Sandra Brown 29 What Makes Straight so Great?  Dwight G. Brown, Jr. 30 Nature’s Sanctuary  Angie Oakes 31 Nature’s Pride and Promise  Cara Quiett 32 Finding Stability in Motion  Megan Batty 33 Queen of Soul  Jelisa Lovette 34 Melodies & Recipes  Cara Quiett 35 Unanswered Questions  Paiten Hamilton 36 Gregory’s Gift  Sandra Brown 37 Sentimental Syrup  Cara Quiett 38 Perfection: A History of Me & My Multi-Colored Elephants  Kathryn A. Coffey 39 Final Thoughts  Sandra Brown 40 Stopping the Cycle: My Journey with Generational Body Image  Kelly Cunningham 41 My Four Opportunities to Grow Up  Noah Villarreal 42 My Last Bow  Amanda Minetti 43 The Eulogy  Sandra Brown 44 Yoga Me Free  Cara Quiett 45 Metamorphosis  Sandra Brown Epilogue  Carmella J. Braniger, Rebekah M. Icenesse, Kathryn A. Coffey and Alex V. Miller

Carmella J. Braniger, Ph.D. (2003), Oklahoma State University, is Associate Professor of English at Millikin University. She has published poems and critical stories, including a story in Critical Storytelling in Uncritical Times (Sense, 2017), for which she served as editor. Kathryn Coffey is an undergraduate at Millikin University. She has had articles published on the Decaturian and BURST. She also has work published in Collage (Fall 2019). Rebekah Icenesse is an English Writing undergraduate at Millikin University. She has had articles published in BURST, and the Decaturian, where she serves as an editor. Alex V. Miller is a Professor at Millikin University where he teaches all levels of acting and stage combat, serves as Coordinator of Performance, Mainstage Director, Resident Fight Director, and is founder of and Executive Director for Shakespeare Corrected. Though his professional performance career has taken him from coast to coast, he currently lives on a small farm in Hammond, IL with his wife and two children.

Reviews for Critical Storytelling from behind Invisible Bars: Undergraduates and Inmates Write Their Way Out

“Critical Storytelling from behind Invisible Bars is a valuable read, giving female inmates a voice and reminding us of the human being behind a prisoner’s number or statistic and demonstrating how everybody is confronted with visible or invisible bars.” Lisa Krolak, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, in Learning Environments Research | Vol. 67 (2021), pp. 559–560.


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