MALS 364 Telling Stories for Social Change

Our social structure is full of unseen, unspoken, and unheard dynamics. These hidden and irresponsible social behaviors have always contributed to the building of visible and invisible social walls. Behind these walls, a growing invisible population has found a way to social visibility through addiction, violence, and crime. This course offers students the unique opportunity to collaborate with a group of people from behind those social walls from two distinct perspectives: theoretical and practical. For one class each week, students will study the root causes of social isolation and invisibility mainly pertaining to incarceration and addiction, in an active learning classroom. For the other half, students will travel to Sullivan County Department of Corrections, in Unity, NH and participate in an interdisciplinary arts program for inmates there. Its final goal is the creation and performance of an original production on the theme of the inmates’ voices. The final project for the course will combine research on themes related to incarceration, rehabilitation, transition, facilitation with critical analysis and self-reflection on the effectiveness of community-based learning and performance in rehabilitation.

Instructor

Pati Hernandez