For Dear Life: Women's Decriminalization and Human Rights in Focus

image of barbed wire fencing with text: For Dear Life, Women's Decriminalization and Human Rights in Focus
Participants : 
  • Carol Jacobsen (Author and Professor, Stamps School of Art & Design, Women's Studies, American Culture, Human Rights)
  • Lynn D'Orio (Attorney & Legal Director, MI Women's Justice & Clemency Project)
  • Interviewer: Ruby Tapia (Women's Studies & English)
Event Date: 
September 18, 2019
Event Time: 
4:00pm to 6:00pm
Location: 
Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery (Room 100)
Event Accessibility : 
The main entrance to the North Building — off the Diag — is equipped with ramps and automated doors (NOTE: ramps do not meet ADA Design Guidelines). The entrance to the South Building — off South University Avenue — has no incline, and has automated doors. Gender neutral restrooms are available on the third through sixth floors of the library.
Event Tags: 
books
gender: new works new questions
carceral state
image of barbed wire fencing with text: For Dear Life, Women's Decriminalization and Human Rights in Focus

"For Dear Life" (U. Michigan Press, 2019) chronicles feminist and artist Carol Jacobsen’s deep commitment to the causes of justice and human rights. Jacobsen’s tireless work with and for women prisoners is charted in this rich assemblage of images and texts that reveal the collective strategies she and the prisoners have employed to receive justice. The book gives evidence that women’s lawbreaking is often an effort to survive gender-based violence. The faces, letters, and testimonies of dozens of incarcerated women with whom Jacobsen has worked present a visceral yet politicized chorus of voices against the criminal-legal systems that fail us all. Their voices are joined by those of leading feminist scholars in essays that illuminate the arduous methods of dissent that Jacobsen and the others have employed to win freedom for more than a dozen women sentenced to life imprisonment, and to free many more from torturous prison conditions.

This conversation will focus a critical lens on an American criminal-legal regime that imparts racist, gendered, and classist modes of punishment to women lawbreakers.

Cosponsors: Stamps School of Art & Design, Dept. of Women's Studies, and the University Library.

Book sales provided by University of Michigan Press. There will be an instant-win raffle at the beginning of the event for 5 free copies of the book! Must be present to win!