The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature In A Men's Prison
by Mikita Brottman /
2016 / English / PDF
196.7 MB Download
[Read by Beverley Crick]
[Read by Beverley Crick]
A riveting account of the two years literary scholar Mikita
Brottman spent reading literature with criminals in a
maximum-security men's prison outside Baltimore, and what she
learned from them --
A riveting account of the two years literary scholar Mikita
Brottman spent reading literature with criminals in a
maximum-security men's prison outside Baltimore, and what she
learned from them --Orange Is the New Black
Orange Is the New Black meets
meetsReading Lolita in Tehran.
Reading Lolita in Tehran.
On sabbatical from teaching literature to undergraduates, and
wanting to educate a different kind of student, Mikita Brottman
starts a book club with a group of convicts from the Jessup
Correctional Institution in Maryland. She assigns them ten dark,
challenging classics -- including Conrad's
On sabbatical from teaching literature to undergraduates, and
wanting to educate a different kind of student, Mikita Brottman
starts a book club with a group of convicts from the Jessup
Correctional Institution in Maryland. She assigns them ten dark,
challenging classics -- including Conrad'sHeart of
Darkness
Heart of
Darkness, Shakespeare's
, Shakespeare'sMacbeth,
Macbeth, Stevenson's
Stevenson'sDr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Poe's story
, Poe's storyThe Black Cat
The Black Cat, and
Nabokov's
, and
Nabokov'sLolita
Lolita -- books that don't flinch from evoking the
isolation of the human struggle, the pain of conflict, and the cost
of transgression. Although Brottman is already familiar with these
works, the convicts open them up in completely new ways. Their
discussions may ''only'' be about literature, but for the
prisoners, everything is at stake.
-- books that don't flinch from evoking the
isolation of the human struggle, the pain of conflict, and the cost
of transgression. Although Brottman is already familiar with these
works, the convicts open them up in completely new ways. Their
discussions may ''only'' be about literature, but for the
prisoners, everything is at stake.
Gradually, the inmates open up about their lives and families,
their disastrous choices, their guilt and loss. Brottman also
discovers that life in prison, while monotonous, is never without
incident. The book club members struggle with their assigned
reading through solitary confinement; on lockdown; in between
factory shifts; in the hospital; and in the middle of the chaos of
blasting televisions, incessant chatter, and the constant banging
of metal doors.
Gradually, the inmates open up about their lives and families,
their disastrous choices, their guilt and loss. Brottman also
discovers that life in prison, while monotonous, is never without
incident. The book club members struggle with their assigned
reading through solitary confinement; on lockdown; in between
factory shifts; in the hospital; and in the middle of the chaos of
blasting televisions, incessant chatter, and the constant banging
of metal doors.
Though
ThoughThe Maximum Security Book Club
The Maximum Security Book Club never loses sight of
the moral issues raised in the selected reading, it refuses to back
away from the unexpected insights offered by the company of these
complex, difficult men. It is a compelling, thoughtful analysis of
literature -- and prison life -- like nothing you've ever read
before.
never loses sight of
the moral issues raised in the selected reading, it refuses to back
away from the unexpected insights offered by the company of these
complex, difficult men. It is a compelling, thoughtful analysis of
literature -- and prison life -- like nothing you've ever read
before.