Prelims
Haunting Prison: Exploring the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution
ISBN: 978-1-80455-369-5, eISBN: 978-1-80455-368-8
Publication date: 27 April 2023
Citation
Fredriksson, T. (2023), "Prelims", Haunting Prison: Exploring the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution (Emerald Studies in Culture, Criminal Justice and the Arts), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. i-x. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80455-368-820231008
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023 Tea Fredriksson
Half Title Page
Haunting Prison
Series Page
EMERALD STUDIES IN CULTURE, CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND THE ARTS
Series Editors:
Yvonne Jewkes
University of Bath, UK
Travis Linnemann
Kansas State University, USA
Sarah Moore
University of Bath, UK
This series aims to take criminological inquiry in new and imaginative directions, by publishing books that represent all forms of criminal justice from an ‘arts’ or ‘cultural’ perspective, and that have something new to tell us about space, place and sensory experience as they relate to forms of justice. Building on emergent interest in the ‘cultural’, ‘autoethnographic’, ‘emotional’, ‘visual’, ‘narrative’ and ‘sensory’ in criminology, books in the series will introduce readers to imaginative forms of inspiration that deepen our conceptual understanding of the lived experience of punishment and of the process of researching within the criminal justice system, as well as discussing the more well-rehearsed problems of cultural representations of justice.
Specifically, this series provides a platform for original research that explores the myriad ways in which architecture, design, aesthetics, hauntology, atmospheres, fine art, graffiti, visual broadcast media and many other ‘cultural’ perspectives are utilized as ways of seeing and understanding the enduring persistence of, and fascination with, the formal institutions of criminal justice and punishment.
Title Page
Haunting Prison: Exploring the Prison as an Abject and Uncanny Institution
By
Tea Fredriksson
Stockholm University, Sweden
United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China
Copyright Page
Emerald Publishing Limited
Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK
First edition 2023
Copyright © 2023 Tea Fredriksson.
Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.
Excerpts from PRISON MEMOIRS OF AN ANARCHIST by Alexander Berkman have been used with permission from Forgotten Books.
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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-80455-369-5 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-80455-368-8 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-80455-370-1 (Epub)
Dedication
For mom and dad
Contents
Preface | ix |
Chapter 1: Prison Imag(inari)es | 1 |
Prison and Popular Culture | 2 |
Aim and Execution | 5 |
Differentiating Authors from Narrators | 7 |
Disposition and Definitions | 8 |
Situating the Study | 9 |
The Surfaces and Depths of Stories | 12 |
A Projected and Projecting Prison | 15 |
Gothic Modes of Narration | 20 |
Exorcising Criminology's Spectres | 25 |
Chapter 2: Prison as an Abject (M)other | 29 |
The Monstrous-Feminine | 32 |
Undeath and Rebirth | 36 |
A Monstrous-Feminine Prison | 38 |
Its Own Point of Reference | 40 |
Undressed, Unborn, and Uniform | 41 |
Carceral Body Horror | 47 |
Discussion | 57 |
Chapter 3: Subjective Abjection | 61 |
Monster-making Relations | 62 |
Monsters and Mirrors | 65 |
Ma(r)king Monsters | 68 |
Unstable Gender and Improper Sex | 70 |
Animals and Cannibals | 78 |
Violence | 81 |
Unmaking Soup | 84 |
Discussion | 90 |
Chapter 4: The Haunting Prison | 95 |
Prison Liminalities | 100 |
Prison Space as Haunted Space | 104 |
Haunted Houses and Haunting Prisons | 106 |
Shifting Doubles | 108 |
Haunting Violence | 112 |
Dreams, Death, and Freedom | 115 |
Discussion | 120 |
Chapter 5: A Prison Chronotope | 123 |
Prison Timespace | 124 |
Labyrinthine Tendencies | 125 |
Repetitive Time(lessness) | 129 |
The Endless in Between | 134 |
A Timespace Apart | 144 |
Discussion | 147 |
Chapter 6: Prisons of Stone and Story | 151 |
The Horror-Storied Prison | 152 |
Incorporation | 152 |
Literal and Literary Anxieties | 153 |
Monster-making | 155 |
Abortive Rebirth | 157 |
Haunting | 158 |
Chronotope | 159 |
Abject and Uncanny Dualities | 161 |
A Prison Meta-Narrative | 161 |
Implications | 164 |
Bibliography | 167 |
Prison Novels | 171 |
Index | 173 |
Preface
This study that makes up this book began as my doctoral thesis, which I started working on in 2016 and completed in 2021. When I first started analysing prison stories from different times, places, and points of view, I was surprised by how coherent they were in terms of theme and imagery despite being historically, geographically, or socially distant from one another. While narrators in this genre are often both literally and literarily confined, even when they were free from incarceration they still depicted prison in much the same way as those who were imprisoned by it. The same held true across regions and historical time. Moreover, it did not take long to note how the themes and images these novels conjured were closely tied to the ghost- and horror stories of Gothic literary conventions.
Commercially published prison autobiographies create a grey area between fact and fiction. Their stories are framed as true, but at the same time they are edited for entertainment purposes and mass-market appeal. While their truth claim is clear, the extent of the truth itself in these stories is not. Nor does it really matter how true these stories are. What matters is that they are presented as true, while also presenting a horror-storied picture of prison for readers to experience through imaginative engagement. As a result, these truth claims become part of how prison stories use a Gothic frame of narration.
This discovery was the starting point for seeing how prison stories are not only bound by prison, but they are also bound by a gothicized literary tradition. To explore how this overlap of prison and gothicity speaks to the cultural anxieties that underpin them both, I turned to the uses of psychoanalytical theory found in sociology and the humanities. What quickly became clear was just how much these stories present abject and uncanny encounters that showcase anxieties about selfhood, life, and death. The prevalence of such themes made these prison stories an intriguing case for the study of a social unconscious. The way content with documentary ambitions uses horror tropes gives rise to so many questions, and so many possibilities for interdisciplinary research.
Rewriting my doctoral thesis to suit the book format has been a bit of a challenge, but it is a challenge I am very happy to have been offered. I especially want to thank Yvonne Jewkes for encouraging me to go for it, and the editorial team at Emerald for making the process of reworking this study so enjoyable. My deepest thanks also go out to those who read, listened to, and commented on this research while I was pursuing my degree, including – but by no means limited to – Frida Beckman, Eamonn Carrabine, Michael Fiddler, Kristina Fjelkestam, Robin Gålnander, Keith Hayward, Magnus Hörnqvist, Ingrid Lander, Anders Nilsson, and Tove Pettersson.
Last but not least, I want to thank my friends and family for always being there, offering snacks and sympathy whenever things got stressful. Like everything else in life, this project would have been way less fun without you.
Tea Fredriksson
September 2022