{"id":137266,"date":"2023-11-14T00:03:13","date_gmt":"2023-11-14T05:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=137266"},"modified":"2023-11-13T17:22:40","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T22:22:40","slug":"visualizing-abolition-studies-program-launches-at-uc-santa-cruz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/visualizing-abolition-studies-program-launches-at-uc-santa-cruz\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Visualizing abolition studies\u2019 program launches at UC Santa Cruz"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘The idea is to expose students to an interdisciplinary framework that centers art and visuality, helping to destabilize our relationship to a future with incarceration imagined inside of it,’ professor says<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The University of California Santa Cruz plans to launch a certificate program next semester that advocates for prison abolition.<\/p>\n

The program \u2014 called \u201cVisualizing Abolition Studies\u201d or VAST \u2014 will try to shift what its organizers see as the view that prison policy needs to be reformed as opposed to abolished entirely, according to organizers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as prisons have existed, people have been talking about reform versus abolition,\u201d Gina Dent, a professor of feminist studies and organizer for the program, stated in the university news release<\/a>. \u201cJust giving people more and more information about the harms caused by incarceration has never actually led to rethinking them systematically.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organizers say art is an underused medium that can be used to accomplish their aims. \u201cThe roles that art and visual culture take in normalizing or destabilizing our carceral society are often overlooked,\u201d the description page<\/a> for the certificate says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is to expose students to an interdisciplinary framework that centers art and visuality, helping to destabilize our relationship to a future with incarceration imagined inside of it,\u201d Dent also said.<\/p>\n

The College Fix<\/em> contacted Dent for comment and asked what the demand is for the program. She has not responded in the past several weeks. Dent worked alongside Professor Angela Davis to create the \u201cCritical Resistance Movement\u201d which called for the abolition of the police.<\/p>\n

Davis is a former Black Panther who supports reparations but also found out earlier<\/a> this year her grandfather was a white slave owner. She is a professor emerita of history of consciousness and feminist studies at UC Santa Cruz.<\/p>\n

A former UC-Santa Cruz professor criticized the program in comments to The Fix<\/em>.<\/p>\n

John Ellis, a professor emeritus at UC Santa Cruz, called the program a continuation of the Defund the Police movement in an email to The Fix<\/em>. \u201cThis is the sequel,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cIf it were ever tried, the result would be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellis said the idea for the program is a result of \u201ccompletely one-party\u201d college campuses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen all political opposition is removed, as it has been over the last 50 years, the one party that is left is no longer kept within the bounds of reason and sanity by opposing voices, and because now unchecked it begins to slide into fantasy\u2014as here,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cThere are no adults left in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

To receive the certificate, students must earn 15 credits in approved courses, including the mandatory \u201cIntroduction to Visualizing Abolition.\u201d<\/p>\n

A summer 2024 course (erroneously labeled on the news release as summer 2023) will allow students to study \u201cprison narratives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liberal foundation backs scholarship that opposes \u2018mass incarceration\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Dent, the director of the program, runs the Visualizing Abolition program at UC Santa Cruz with the help of nearly $2 million<\/a> from the liberal Mellon Foundation. The certificate is a result of that initiative.<\/p>\n

Some professors at the university see the program as setting the stage for taking on what they call \u201cmass incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter decades of the era of mass incarceration, the United States and other nations are poised to make fundamental, paradigm-altering change,\u201d Professor of Psychology Craig Haney, a VAST-affiliated faculty member, said in the university news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cVAST will contribute intellectual momentum and passion to this movement, and our students will have opportunities to be a central part of all of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Other affiliated faculty include Sophia Azeb, a professor of critical race and ethnic studies, Caitlin Keliiaa, a feminist studies professor, and Savannah Shange, an anthropology\/critical race and ethnic studies scholar. Other professors of art, film, and digital media will teach courses.<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/strong> University rejects student vote to defund police of $2 million<\/a><\/p>\n

IMAGE: Alex Sarkissian\/Shutterstock.com<\/p>\n

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