Some questions are too important to study from a distance. Why does the United States incarcerate more people than any other country in the world? How is the prison system rooted in anti-Black racism? What does justice actually look like, and who gets to decide?

These are the questions at the heart of The American Carceral State, an advanced cross-departmental English and history course that asks students to use the tools of the historian, the literary critic, and the investigative journalist to examine one of the most urgent issues of our time. Drawing on foundational texts including Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow, Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy, Angela Davis's Are Prisons Obsolete?, and Elizabeth Hinton's From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, students have spent the semester building a rigorous, layered understanding of how mass incarceration came to define American society, and who it has most devastated.

This semester, the course has gone beyond the page in a remarkable way, welcoming a series of guest speakers whose work lives at the intersection of law, advocacy, documentary filmmaking, and public service.

Earlier this semester, students heard from Rosie Major, a death penalty lawyer, Justice 360 fellow, and Adjunct Professor of Law at Cornell University, whose work defending those on death row brought the human stakes of the course's central questions into sharp relief. Jumaane Williams, New York City's Public Advocate, joined the class to speak about policy, activism, and the ongoing work of building a more just city and society.

Most recently, the class welcomed JoeBill Muñoz, Emmy-winning director and producer of The Strike, a feature documentary about the California prisoner-led protests against solitary confinement. Muñoz spoke with students about his family's journey to the United States, the journalistic instincts he first discovered at a Texas high school, and the winding path that led him to become one of documentary filmmaking's most compelling emerging voices. Named to DOC NYC's "40 Under 40" list of emerging filmmakers, Muñoz premiered The Strike at Hot Docs in 2024, where it won the Student Choice Award, before it was broadcast nationally on PBS's Independent Lens. The film has since screened more than 100 times in classrooms, universities, and community spaces across North America.

Students watched The Strike before Muñoz's visit and came prepared with thoughtful questions and conversation the course is designed to produce. 

Ultimately, The American Carceral State aims to do something rare and important: to produce not just more skilled readers and thinkers, but more informed and effective advocates for justice. This semester's guest speakers, each one working at the front lines of that work in their own way, have brought that mission to life in the most direct way possible.

Berkeley Carroll extends its deepest thanks to JoeBill Muñoz and all who have given their time and expertise to engage with our students this semester.