Doran Larson, the Edward North Chair of Greek and Greek Literature and Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, recently presented in a panel discussion on prison writing hosted by the University at Buffalo (UB) Prison Studies Certificate program.
The discussion focused on writers like Dashiell Hammett, Oscar Wilde, Jack London, and others who were at one time incarcerated. The event also featured a book exhibit examining the intellectual and creative contributions of incarcerated authors.
According to Mary Nell Trautner, UB associate professor of sociology and criminology, and director of the UB College in Prison Program, this and other Prison Studies Certificate events “are meant to challenge common perceptions about incarcerated individuals.
“I think there’s a tendency to see people in prison as defined by the worst thing they have done, but this collection and panel reminds us that these people are also often thinkers, creators and contributors to society,” she noted.
Larson is the founder of the American Prison Writing Archive (APWA), the home to “contributions by current and formerly incarcerated people, correctional officers, staff, administrators and volunteers.” The APWA grew from a book project for which he collected essays from incarcerated individuals and prison workers.
The influx of new material continued long after the submission deadline, leading to the creation of the APWA, described by Larson as “a digital platform for non-fiction essays by incarcerated people writing about their experience inside (that) seeks to disaggregate this population into singular minds and ideas.”
The AWPA has been housed at Johns Hopkins University since 2022, when a grant from The Mellon Foundation made it possible for the archive “to expand, broaden dissemination, and to move from Hamilton College.”
