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Prisons and Punishment in Texas : Culture, History and Museological Representation / by Hannah Thurston.

Springer Nature - Springer Law and Criminology eBooks 2016 English International Available online

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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Thurston, Hannah, Author.
Series:
Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology, 2753-0612
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Corrections.
Punishment.
Crime--Sociological aspects.
Crime.
Criminology.
Culture.
Ethnology--America.
Ethnology.
Cultural property.
Prison and Punishment.
Crime and Society.
Criminology Theory.
Sociology of Culture.
American Culture.
Cultural Heritage.
Local Subjects:
Prison and Punishment.
Crime and Society.
Criminology Theory.
Sociology of Culture.
American Culture.
Cultural Heritage.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (IX, 249 p. 20 illus., 15 illus. in color.)
Edition:
1st ed. 2016.
Place of Publication:
London : Palgrave Macmillan UK : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Summary:
This book explores the identity of Texas as a state with a large and severe penal system. It does so by assessing the narratives at work in Texas museums and tourist sites associated with prisons and punishment. In such cultural institutions, complex narratives are presented, which show celebratory stories of Texan toughness in the penal sphere, as well as poignant stories about the witnessing of executions, comical stories that normalize the harsher aspects of Texan punishment, and presentations about prison officers who have lost their lives in the war on crime. In analysing these representations, the book shows that Texan history plays an important role in the production of Texan self-identity, and that to understand the Texan commitment to harsh punishment we must be prepared to focus on Texan myths and memories. Prisons and Punishment in Texas draws on diverse interdisciplinary work, including criminology, cultural studies aboutSouthern values, as well as research on cultural memory and dark tourism. Museums are shown to be under-researched sites of criminological significance, which offer rich evidence through which penal imaginaries and the cultural role of punishment can be explored. The book will be of great interest to criminologists as well as scholars of sociology, cultural studies, museum studies and politics.
Contents:
Introduction
Part I. Setting the Scene for Museological Research
Chapter 1. The Significance of Stories in Museum Research
Chapter 2. Becoming a Texas Tourist
Chapter 3. Telling Tales About a 'Tough Texas'
Part II. Representing Punishment in the United States of America
Chapter 4. Emotionality and Cultural Stories of (In)justice
Chapter 5. The Cultural Life of Punishment in the Southern States
Chapter 6. Narrative Possibilities in Cultural Life Research
Part III. The Punishment Museums of the Lone Star State
Chapter 7. Museum Stories of a Distinctly Tough Texas
Chapter 8. Depicting Modern Punishment as Civilised Punishment
Chapter 9. A Narrative Journey Through Inmate Identities
Part IV. The Texan Self-Identity Past and Present
Chapter 10. 'Texanicity' and its Punishment Dimensions
Chapter 11. Texan Toughness and Lone Star Memories: The Alamo and the Old West
Chapter 12. Re-imaging Texas as a Place of Harsh Punishment
Epilogue.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:
9781137533081
1137533080

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