Prison Cultures

Aylwyn Walsh is a lecturer in applied theatre at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds.

• IntroductionChapter One: Prison Cultures Habitus and ‘Tragic Containment’Chapter Two: Genealogies of Prison as Performance: Towards a Theory of Simulating the CageChapter Three: Trauma, Strategies and Tactics: Problems of Performance in PrisonChapter Four: Race, Space and ViolenceChapter Five: Prison Lesbians: Screening Intimacy and DesireChapter Six: Performance through Prison: Institutional Ghosts and Traces of the TraumaticParadoxes of Prison CulturesBibliography

'Walsh's book doesn't disappoint. [...] Prison Cultures provides an incredibly rich, detailed, and complex performance analysis of women's prisons and imprisonment, and develops an argument for performance as a tool for resistance in carceral settings. [...] [It] shifts the prison theatre discourse in new directions, shunning the typical arguments around efficacy and impact in favour of striking new ground. The book is an ideal source for researchers interested in theatre and performance in the criminal justice system, and for those with a keen interest in penology, cultural and feminist criminology. The provocations presented to the applied theatre in the criminal justice sector should also serve to make this a valuable resource to those studying, and practising, prison theatre.'