Prison Education Initiative

CSU-UG1444

This course will focus on the uses of the visual and performing arts and spoken word as tools for positive social change. Through hands-on collaboration with the Blackout Arts Collective and Island Academy, students will create artistic and dialogical spaces for critically thinking about the crisis of incarceration in this country. Speakers may include representatives of the Prison Moratorium Project and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Readings include writings by Augusto Boal, Christian Parenti, Manning Marable, Bakari Kitwana, and Bryonn Bain. Students will create arts-based workshops which they will facilitate with incarcerated youth at Rikers Island. Students do not need to be artists to participate in the course, however, creative building will be an integral part of the curriculum.  

SCA-UA 366

Examines how the American legal system decided constitutional challenges affecting the empowerment of African, Latino, and Asian American communities from the 19th century to the present. Topics include the denial of citizenship and naturalization to slaves and immigrants, government-sanctioned segregation, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the prison industry, police brutality, post-9/11 detention issues, and voting rights. Course requirements include attendance at a community function involving constitutional issues, a midterm, and an interactive oral and written final project comparing a present-day issue affecting racial minorities in New York City and proposing measures to collectively address the issue.  (AF,AM,APA,GSS,LAT)  

SCA-UA 610

Interdisciplinary introduction to the law as it interacts with society. Analysis focuses on problems in areas such as housing, zoning, welfare, and consumer affairs, emphasizing the underlying social, economic, and political causes of the problems and the responses made by lawmakers and courts. Readings are drawn from the law and social science. No specific knowledge of law is required.  (AM, MET) 

SCA-UA 493.001

This course explores the history, politics, and social meaning of sex work. Focusing particularly but not exclusively upon prostitution, we will pay careful attention to the diverse range of social experiences which form sex work, as well as the way in which prostitution is utilized as a governing metaphor within sexual relations more generally. Some questions the course will consider:  How has sex work changed over time, and what do these changes tell us about both the nature of sex work and about the broader society? In what ways is sex work similar to or different from other forms of service labor or other types of intimate relationship? How do questions of race, class, sexuality and gender alter the meaning and experience of sex work? What sorts of desires and expectations do clients bring to interactions with sex workers, and in what ways have these shifted over time? Recent controversies concerning sex trafficking and underage prostitution will also be addressed, as will the effects of various regulatory schemes that have been developed around the world.  

V18.0751.001

The city as an economic organization. Urbanization trends, functional specialization, and the nature of growth within the city; organization of economic activity within the city and its outlying areas, the organization of the labor market, and problems of urban poverty; the urban public economy; housing and land-use problems; transportation problems; and special problems within the public sector. (MET, SCA)  

IPSEM-UG1656

This course will focus on the uses of the visual and performing arts and spoken word as tools for positive social change. Through hands-on collaboration with the Blackout Arts Collective and Island Academy, students will create artistic and dialogical spaces for critically thinking about the crisis of incarceration in this country. Speakers may include representatives of the Prison Moratorium Project and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Readings include writings by Augusto Boal, Christian Parenti, Manning Marable, Bakari Kitwana, and Bryonn Bain. Students will create arts-based workshops which they will facilitate with incarcerated youth at Rikers Island. Students do not need to be artists to participate in the course, however, creative building will be an integral part of the curriculum.  

Facilitate workshops with incarcerated youth. Opportunities offered through the Lyrics on Lockdown course

There is no current formal fieldwork available here through NYU classes. Students interested in volunteering here should either negotiate the specifics with your instructor or link with a community-based organization.  

There is no current formal fieldwork available here through NYU classes. Students interested in volunteering here should either negotiate the specifics with your instructor or link with a community-based organization.   

There is no current formal fieldwork available here through NYU classes. Students interested in volunteering here should either negotiate the specifics with your instructor or link with a community-based organization.