International Conference: Prisons and Prisoners in the History and Sociology of Knowledge (17th-20th century)

Thursday, 12 June

9:30-10:00 Welcome coffee

10:00-10:15 Introduction

10:15-12:30 Session 1: Agency and knowledge

Gwenola Ricordeau (California State University): Reclaiming space is not enough. Doing research about the prison system as a relative of prisoners and an abolitionist

Kiran Mehta (University of Leicester): Producing knowledge from inside the prison: England, 1770-1840

Viviane Borges (University of the State of Santa Catarina): Incarcerated voices: Writings by common prisoners in the 20th centuryChair: Cézane Beretta (University of Fribourg)

Chair: Cézane Beretta (University of Fribourg)

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:30 Session 2: Observing penal work in colonial contexts

Nadia Biskri Berkane (University Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne): Penal work and the colonization of Algeria

Kai F. Herzog (Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg): Knowledge, ignorance, violence. Imprisonment, convict labour, and colonial capitalism in Great Namaqualand (1896-1903/04)

Chair: Léa Renard (Heidelberg University)

15:30-16:00 Coffee break

16:00-18:15 Session 3: Science, health and experimentation on detainees

Caroline Montebello (University of Geneva): Anthropology under duress: Sero-anthropological investigations in Swiss internment camps during the Second World War

Oxana Kosenko, Florian Steger (Ulm University): Between discipline and punishment. Health care for political prisoners in the remand prison of the Ministry of State Security in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen in the 1970s-80s

Klára Pinerová (Dresden University of Technology/Czech Academy of Sciences): The success and limits of the use of psychological research in Czechoslovak prisons in the years 1967-1980

Chair: Alix Heiniger (University of Fribourg)

Friday, 13 June

9:00-12:30 Session 4: Investigating prisons and detainees

Nathalie Dahn-Singh (University of Lausanne): “Horrible dungeons, of which humanity prohibits all use”. Knowledge production and prison materiality in the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803)

Camille Meyre (International Committee of the Red Cross): Capturing war detention: How were International Committee of the Red Cross visit reports turned into searchable data?

Anaïs Lefèvre (Sorbonne University): “Somebody please come down here”: Investigations of prison work camps and prisoner resistance in the State of Georgia (1930s-1960s)

Valentine Dewulf (Free University of Brussels): Investigation, reform and internationalism. Missions in Congolese prisons after the Second World War during the Belgian colonization

Chair: Anne-Françoise Praz (University of Fribourg)

12:30-14:00 Lunch

14:00-17:30 Session 5: Knowledge in reform and abolition movements

Lorenzo Coccoli (University of Catania), Andrea Giuliani (University of Rome Tor Vergata), Chiara Lucrezio Monticelli (University of Rome Tor Vergata): Italian houses of correction as a model? Rome and Milan in 18th and 19th century prison tourism and public debate

Anouk Essyad (University of Fribourg): The carceralists. Actors and circulations of a “penitentiary science” at the crossroads of several disciplines

Erin Hazan (University of the Witwatersrand): “Gradually the features and methods of penal systems of the past are being abandoned”: Jacob de Villiers Roos and the South African Prisons and Reformatories Act of 1911

Shaïn Morisse (University of Paris-Saclay): Thomas Mathiesen (1933-2021): A life of unfinished action research against prison

Chair: Laure Piguet (University of Fribourg/Centre Marc Bloch, Humboldt University)

Organizers

Laure Piguet, Léa Renard & Alix Heiniger

Contact

Laure Piguet: laure.piguet[at]unifr.ch