CLASSES
Each year, PNAP offers between 13-15 non-credit college-level courses in subjects ranging from printmaking and criminology to poetry and women’s studies. Faculty are independent artists and Chicago university professors. A committee identifies new faculty and classes based on student interest and a desire to offer classes in a wide range of subjects taught by faculty that are representative of our student population. Our commitment to non-credit classes has been supported and articulated by our students in prison as access to general education and art has been a critical gateway to higher education. Along with classes, PNAP hosts guest lectures where speakers discuss their work as writers, artists, and activists with a group in the Stateville auditorium.
Current Courses
Violence in Society
Faculty: Beth Richie
We are living through an unprecedented time where things are changing very quickly. Questions of justice and safety arise as part of daily debates. Feelings of fear and uncertainty prevail. Some groups are facing immediate danger and other formations are using power in overt ways to cause harm. Scholars, activists and policy makers alike anticipate significant changes in the social fabric and relationships between groups and individuals because of these changes. Many wonder what role violence will play in this transformation. This course will attempt to answer this question by exploring the theoretical perspectives on the causes and consequences of violence in society and discussing the current political, social and emotional dynamics that influence and are influenced by violence. We will examine the harm caused by individuals, groups, and the state and evaluate how violence is linked to forms of systemic oppression and social domination.
Economy, Society and Public Policy
Faculty: Damon Jones
This course will provide an introduction to the study of economics, grounded in real-world and practical policy questions. The target audience is any student who wants to learn how to use economics to understand and articulate reasoned views on some of the most pressing policy problems facing our society: inequality, financial instability, labor markets, climate change, wealth creation, and innovation. The course will differ from a standard introductory economics course by incorporating a wide range of views and insights, not just the neoclassical model of economics that tends to focus on simple supply, demand, and free markets. Instead, we will incorporate analyses of power, diverse schools of thought, and a notion of the economy situated in society and the biosphere.
Introduction to Visual Criminology
Faculty: Luke Fidler and Jason LaFountain
Criminal suspects are processed with mugshots and fingerprinting. Activists print posters to protest police brutality. Prisons appear regularly on TV. Attending to subjects like these, the emerging discipline of ‘visual criminology’ has framed the relationship between images and power in terms of the prison system and its corresponding regimes of control, policing, and punishment. Scholars are persuasively articulating the ways that evidence, law, criminology, and images are, as Katherine Biber argues, deeply reliant upon each other. In this course, we look at the history of crime and punishment in the United States and beyond by examining the architectural designs, photographs, drawings, and other works of visual culture that put people in prison and help to keep them there. We then see how artists have engaged the same visual traditions to challenge the ways that policing and imprisonment shape our lives, even calling into question the very existence of institutions like the prison or practices like the death penalty.
Art: Anthems
Faculty: Sarah Ross, Anna Martine Whitehead, Aaron Hughes and Damon Locks
This is a year-long art course exploring the idea of the ANTHEM through different artistic iterations. The course uses movement, song, image, and language to address issues of citizenship, belonging, and freedom. The class will be conducted in four sections. Section one of this course will start with a study of anthems (personal, community, national) and other songs that seek to create a sense of belonging. Students will create visual forms and write their own anthems. Section two will work with movement based on anthems developed in section one. Section three will focus on the graphic novel, which might be considered as a program for an Anthem performance. Finally, section four will develop larger scale works, which will be utilized as a set for a performance of movements and anthems. Throughout the year the class will host guest artists to further inform the work. A culminating project will be a comic book that incorporates song, dance scores and mural designs.
The Lyric Essay
Faculty: Audrey Petty
In this seminar, we’ll closely consider the lyric essay–its origins and its aesthetics. We’ll read several craft essays about the lyric essay, and closely study exemplary texts that vary widely in theme and aesthetic approach. Assigned texts will include works by such authors as James Baldwin, Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston, and John Edgar Wideman. Students will keep a journal to track their key questions and observations about assigned readings, and students will also draft and refine lyric essays of their own over the course of the workshop.
Math Tutorial
Faculty: Desmond Taylor
Think Tank
Faculty: Alice Kim, Durrell Washington, and Noelle Petrowski
Past Courses
2019-20 Academic Year
African Americans and the Civil War
Faculty: Dr. Johari Jabir
Envisioning Criminal Justice Reforms
Faculty: Dr. Clinton Nichols
Art: Anthems
Faculty: Sarah Ross, Anna Martine Whitehead, Aaron Hughes and Damon Locks
Writing Poetry
Faculty: Dr. Tara Betts
Critical Writing and Research
Faculty: Dr. Tim Barnett, Dr. Martha Biondi, Dr. Erica Meiners, and Dr. Beth Richie
Draw What You See/Draw What You Dream
Faculty: Aaron Hughes
Our Dances, Our Freedom
Faculty: Anna Martine Whitehead
Art and Empire in the Ancient World
Faculty: Dr. Luke Fidler
The Social Value of Latinas/os/xs
Faculty: Michael De Anda Muňiz
Manifesta for the Future
Faculty: Claire Pentecost
2018-19 Academic Year
Introduction to Writing
Faculty: Simone Waller
Digging Deeper: Poetry Informed by Contingent Citizenship and Being Human
Faculty: Dr. Tara Betts
Emancipation and Abolition in Historical Perspective
Faculty: Dr. Kai Parker
Afrofuturism: Science Fiction as Social Commentary and Alternative Visions of Tomorrow
Faculty: Dr. Clinton Nichols
UWW Capstone Experience Course
Faculty: Dr. Timothy Barnett & Dr. Erica Meiners
2017-2018 Academic Year
Race and Politics
Faculty: Dr. Cathy J. Cohen
Make Your Mark & Fly Your Flag
Faculty: Aaron Hughes
From Civil Rights to #Black Lives Matter: Politics, Society and Protest Since the 1960s
Faculty: Dr. Martha Biondi
Movement / Movement: Dance and Liberation
Faculty: Anna Martine Whitehead
Poetry About My Rights: Writing Poems Informed by Contingent Citizenship
Faculty: Dr. Tara Betts
2017-2018 Academic Year
Introduction to Environmental Justice
Faculty: Dr. Antonio Reyes Lopez
Writing Workshop: Creating Character
Faculty: Tess Landon
Printmaking: Developing a Collaborative Portfolio
Faculty: William Estrada
Art and Animation
Faculty: Damon Locks and Sarah Ross
Mapping the Self in Community
Faculty: Jill Petty, Audrey Petty, and Dr. Miriam Petty
American Public Schools
Faculty: Dr. Eve Ewing and Dr. David Stovall
Justice and Politics in Shakespeare’s Plays
Faculty: Dr. Wendy Wall
Black Women in History, Politics and The Law
Faculty: Dr. Beth Richie, Dr. Barbara Ransby, and Dr. Cathy Cohen
Critical Education: Power, Knowledge, and Change
Faculty: Dr. Tim Barnett and Dr. Erica Meiners
Introduction to Criminology
Faculty: Dr. Clinton Nichols
A Survey of Black Writers
Faculty: Dr. Tara Betts
Writing: Education from the Public to the Personal
Faculty: Tess Landon
Political Theory: The Meaning and Limits of Rights
Faculty: Dr. Lucy Cane
Philosophy: Freedom and Its Limits
Faculty: Dr. David Egan
Philosophy: Philosophy of Punishment
Faculty: Dr. Jessica Bird
2016-2017 Academic Year
American Art: A People’s History
Faculty: Dr. Luke Fidler and Dr. Jason LaFountain
Introduction to Latina/o Studies
Faculty: Michael De Anda Muñiz
Staging Time: Real Stories, Real Theater
Faculty: David Feiner and Benjamin Serrano, Albany Park Theater Project
African American Studies 101
Faculty: Dr. Kai Parker
Passing Time: (In)significant Moments
Faculty: Andres L. Hernandez
Literature: The Journey
Faculty: Audrey Petty
History: From Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter
Faculty: Dr. Martha Biondi
Art: From Drawing the Personal to Printing the Public
Faculty: Aaron Hughes
Writing: Writing Through a Wall
Faculty: Alice Kim
Performance: Dance and Movement-building
Faculty: Anna Martine Whitehead
2015-2016 Academic Year
Literature: Detective Fiction
Faculty: Dr. Tim Barnett
Abstracting Nature
Faculty: William Estrada
Political Science: The Meaning and Limits of Rights
Faculty: Dr. Anna Terweil and Dr. Lucy Cane
The Artistic Imagination
Faculty: Dr. Jason LaFountain
Art: Drawing on Community
Faculty: Marvin Tate
Religion and the Black Freedom Struggle
Faculty: Dr. Kai Parker
Black Women and the Justice System
Faculty: Dr. Beth Richie
Words Free: An Exploration of Poetry & Poetics
Faculty: Dr. Lasana Kazembe
African American History, 1619-1900
Faculty: Dr. Kai Parker
Freedom Dreams
Faculty: Alice Kim
Core Writing Skills
Faculty: Nancy Traver
Art and Science Fiction: Documenting the Future
Faculty: Damon Locks
2014-2015 Academic Year
Reading and Writing Our Lives
Faculty: Dr. Tim Barnett
Political Theory: Theory and Event
Faculty: Dr. Lucy Cane
The Art and Craft of Memoir: Object Lessons
Faculty: Audrey Petty
Black Women and the Criminal Justice System
Faculty: Dr. Beth Richie
Introduction to Latino and Latin American Studies
Faculty: Dr. Christina Gomez
Portraiture and Installation
Faculty: Sarah Ross
Writing Workshop
Faculty: Dr. Amy Partridge and Dr. Erica Meiners
Poetry Series: Writing and a Healing
Faculty: Marvin Tate
Animals: Myth and Reality
Faculty: Claire Pentecost
The Artist in Representation
Faculty: Damon Locks
Introduction to Political Theory in the American Context
Faculty: Dr. Lucy Cane and Dr. Anna Terwiel
African American History, 1865-Present
Faculty: Dr. Darryl Heller
2013-2014 Academic Year
Personal Narratives in History
Faculty: Dr. Amy Partridge
Art & Advocacy, History & Practice
Faculty: Tess Landon
Art: (Re)creation / Time
Faculty: Damon Locks, Sarah Ross, and Fereshteh Toosi
The Fiction and Prose of Richard Wright
Faculty: Dr. Natasha Barnes
Social Change Histories
Faculty: Dr. Erica Meiners and Jill Petty
Poetry: Dear Reader
Faculty: Fred Sasaki, Lindsay Garbutt, Ydalmi Noriega, Ashley Sheehan, James Sitar, Mairead Case, Nuria Sheehan, Poetry Foundation
Humanities: Social Change Histories
Faculty: Ben Almassi and Nick Smaligo
Drawing from Observation
Faculty: Ryan Griffis
Expository Writing Basics
Faculty: Jill Petty
Poor People’s Movements in the 2000s, 1960s & 1930s
Faculty: Dr. Amy Partridge
2012-2013 Academic Year
Gendered Perspectives
Faculty: Dr. Erica Meiners
Unexpected Art, Unexpected Artists
Faculty: Tess Landon
Mural and Painting Workshop
Faculty: Gabriel Villa
The Letter
Faculty: Claire Pentecost
Creative Writing: Political Poetry
Faculty: Daniela Olszewska
Creative Writing: Coming of Age
Faculty: Jill Petty
Poetry
Faculty: Anthony Madrid, Nadya Pittendrigh, Fred Sasaki, and Tess Landon.
Visual Stories
Faculty: Sarah Ross