To Save the Soul of America: Abolition, Repression, and Resistance in 21st Century Black Studies
A Conversation with Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry
Tommie Shelby, who has dedicated his career to thinking about questions regarding race, Black political thought, and social theory, was intrigued by the prison abolition movement of recent decades and wondered whether he should be part of it. But the Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy was bothered by the sense that he didn’t have a firm grasp on its underpinnings. So he set himself the task of working through the major arguments in favor of abolition, including incarceration’s ties to slavery, racism in the prison system, various inequities in the justice system itself, and the prison industrial complex, and chronicled that journey in his new book, “The Idea of Prison Abolition.” - The Harvard Gazette
Join Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies Tommie Shelby and Brandon M. Terry, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and the co-director of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research for a provocative discussion on the prison and justice systems. In addition to Prof. Shelby's new book "The Idea of Prison Abolition," Profs. Shelby and Terry will discuss the publication they edited together "To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.," the current state of Harvard's Department of African and African American Studies, and more. You won't want to miss this!