Introduction

Last fall, I taught the course Theories of Religion to students at New York’s Auburn Prison through the Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP). As funded through a recent grant from the Mellon Foundation, CPEP is in the process of expanding its program from two facilities to four and is assembling a consortium of area schools to participate in it. The University of Rochester, where I am an assistant professor of religion, is one of these schools.

I required my Auburn students to complete a weekly writing assignment. Below, I present the assignment in full, as it appeared on the syllabus, with notations to follow.

“New York Theological Seminary Prison Program, Sing Sing Correctional Facility.” 2000. Souls 2 (1): 12–16.

Alexander, Michelle. 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press.

Atkins, Jr., Charles. 2016. “The Path of the Logos: The Relevance of the Practice of Bible Study in an American Prison.” Dissertation (PhD). Université de Montréal.

Atkins, Margaret Quern. 2007. “Integrative Justice Theory: A Study of God’s Justice and the US Prison System.” Thesis (MTS), Drew Theological School.

Castro, Erin L., Michael Brawn, Daniel E. Graves, Orlando Mayorga, Johnny Page, and Andra Slater. 2015. "Higher Education in an Era of Mass Incarceration: Possibility under Constraint." Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs Vol. 1, Article 2.