During this seminar, we developed a digital group project that addressed the question of remembering and denying pasts through the historical and critical relationships between carcerality, race, and storytelling in Connecticut.
The tensions between rule by the people, rule by elites, and rule of law are at the core of democratic theory. What is the proper balance among the three? Under what circumstances is one group of decision makers better than another? What happens when they come into conflict? We focus on the following topics: the role of voting in liberal democracies, the Athenian jury system, deliberative democracy, referendum and initiatives, civil disobedience, and the role of juries in the U.S. criminal justice system.
Combining oral history, visual storytelling methods, and documentary performance in a workshop format, this course will reenact court transcripts and contemporary and historic testimonies related to guns and gun violence in America. These reenactments are based on testimonies and documents collected that interpolate the legal issues around guns in the U.S. and the impact of guns on American society, especially on women, children, and communities of color.