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In the past few years, the need for prison reform in America has reached the level of a consensus. We agree that many prison terms are too long, especially for nonviolent drug offenders; that long-term isolation is a bad idea; and that basic psychiatric and medical care in prisons is woefully inadequate. Some people believe that contracting out prison services to for-profit companies is a recipe for mistreatment. Robert Ferguson argues that these reforms barely scratch the surface of what is wrong with American prisons: an atmosphere of malice and humiliation that subjects prisoners and guards alike to constant degradation. Bolstered by insights from hundreds of letters written by prisoners, Ferguson makes the case for an entirely new concept of prisons and their purpose: an "inner architectonics of reform" that will provide better education for all involved in prisons, more imaginative and careful use of technology, more sophisticated surveillance systems, and better accountability -- Dust jacket

"Practice Extended is a collection of Robert A. Ferguson's essays reflecting forty years of his scholarship and reflects the evolution and the aims of the field as well as its impact on the study of both literature and law. Ferguson's work explores a wide range of topics including immigration, eloquence, the Constitution, rhetoric and Ulysses, and mercy. Ferguson's essays emphasize the interdisciplinary connection between law and literature. The field, as Ferguson sees it has roots in two major developments in the intellectual history of law--first, the growing doubt about whether law in isolation is a source of value and meaning, or whether it must be understood within larger cultural and intellectuals contexts; and, second, the continued focus on the mutability of meaning in all texts, whether literary or legal. Those who work in the field stress one or the other of two complementary perspectives: law in literature (understanding legal issues as they are explored in great literary texts such as Billy Budd) and law as literature (understanding legal texts by reference to methods of literary interpretation, analysis, and critique)" --

Widely regarded as the first existentialist philosopher, Kierkegaard's philosophical priority of human reality over idealism and his emphasis on personal choice make him an astoundingly relevant thinker today

Robert Ferguson diagnoses all parts of a massive, out-of-control punishment regime. Turning the spotlight on the plight of prisoners, he asks the American people, Do we want our prisons to be this way? Acknowledging the suffering of prisoners and understanding what punishers do when they punish are the first steps toward a better, more just system

Disclaimer: The views represented in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy position of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the federal government. ; Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Acquisition Research Symposium Cost Estimating ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program ; Prepared for the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

Intractable problems, ones that defy solution because of conflicting lines of force, almost always require an outside catalyst for any movement toward an answer. This Essay explores intractability through two parallel historical moments of conflict: debate over slavery in ante-bellum America and debate over aliens in current America. Severe discrimination (based on difference, racial prejudice, communal identity formation, and larger psychological needs) deprives these disadvantaged groups of human rights and the protection of law. Nineteenth-century slavery and twenty-first century illegal immigration also share another quality. Both stimulate virulent forms of rhetorical excess that endanger the body politic and threaten the social fabric of an increasingly divided United States. The connection of law and literature offers a catalyst, an opportunity for a change in perspective through the power of fiction. As Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, forced recognitions of a common humanity against slavery, so Henry Roth's classic immigrant novel, Call It Sleep, indicates some of what is currently needed now. The synergy between legal and literary forms of address encourages a deeper realization, and that realization, in turn, raises a question about intractable problems in general. Can the rule of law, when law itself is questioned, respond through its equal partner, the right to free expression?

Education should never be reduced to a single subject. A curriculum should never be reduced to a single field, period or academic discipline. Media Education, likewise, has to be committed to a plurality of approaches and fields of interest. It has to deal with the seemingly trite and the unambiguously significant, whether in relation to fashion, history, science, religion, national and personal identities, gender, age, ethnicity, class and a myriad of other fields of representation. It has also to allow for the critical exploration of the relationships between representation and lived existence. Media Education, initially, has to be about the way things are, the way things are represented, and how the ways in which things are represented have an impact on the way things are. It is a process which requires at least two conditions to be met. The first is that those engaged with Media Education, whether as students, researchers or teachers have to undergo a constant, demanding and open-ended period of skill acquisition, of intellectual development and a willingness to doubt and to act in the world. The second condition is that all involved in Media Education have to recognise and accept that we inhabit a fragile, delightful, horrific, challenging, beautiful, ugly, insecure, contradictory world, and it is the only one we have. That, at least, is a beginning. Acceptance of these conditions does not sit comfortably beside the bureaucratisation of education and the managerialism which sustains the bureaucracy. But these two conditions are, to adopt the language of the planner, prerequisites. ; Education should never be reduced to a single subject. A curriculum should never be reduced to a single field, period or academic discipline. Media Education, likewise, has to be committed to a plurality of approaches and fields of interest. It has to deal with the seemingly trite and the unambiguously significant, whether in relation to fashion, history, science, religion, national and personal identities, gender, age, ethnicity, class and a myriad of other fields of representation. It has also to allow for the critical exploration of the relationships between representation and lived existence. Media Education, initially, has to be about the way things are, the way things are represented, and how the ways in which things are represented have an impact on the way things are. It is a process which requires at least two conditions to be met. The first is that those engaged with Media Education, whether as students, researchers or teachers have to undergo a constant, demanding and open-ended period of skill acquisition, of intellectual development and a willingness to doubt and to act in the world. The second condition is that all involved in Media Education have to recognise and accept that we inhabit a fragile, delightful, horrific, challenging, beautiful, ugly, insecure, contradictory world, and it is the only one we have. That, at least, is a beginning. Acceptance of these conditions does not sit comfortably beside the bureaucratisation of education and the managerialism which sustains the bureaucracy. But these two conditions are, to adopt the language of the planner, prerequisites.

They do say that all ideas have their time, and in media education it seems that it is the time for democracy. Books and papers begin to appear and there are conferences with democracy in their titles to replace a focus on the postmodern, or identity. There seems to be a general consensus that democracy is a ‹good thing›. But, as with most other significant terms which hold centre stage for a while, they need to be interrogated with some care. For some more critical educators democracy takes its place alongside Gandhi's comment when asked about Western Civilisation – he said it would be a good idea. The ‹practice› of democracy takes on a poignant, ironic, desperate or cynical cloak in the light of recent world events and the rise of terrorism as a political weapon. It depends where you stand. Democracy is not something that thrills the hearts and minds of the vast majority of citizens who live in nations who declare themselves to be democratic. Apathy and cynicism work together against democratic growth. But so do governments whose declared democratic aims pay scant attention to the people they are supposed to represent. And then there are the ‹democratic› exercises which supposedly involve the people in a conversation (‹we are listening› they say) which results in the status quo being implemented by politicians with morally superior physiognomies. After all, they say, we did ask your opinions. We did ask you to participate. And so democracy staggers from crisis to disaster. ; They do say that all ideas have their time, and in media education it seems that it is the time for democracy. Books and papers begin to appear and there are conferences with democracy in their titles to replace a focus on the postmodern, or identity. There seems to be a general consensus that democracy is a ‹good thing›. But, as with most other significant terms which hold centre stage for a while, they need to be interrogated with some care. For some more critical educators democracy takes its place alongside Gandhi's comment when asked about Western Civilisation – he said it would be a good idea. The ‹practice› of democracy takes on a poignant, ironic, desperate or cynical cloak in the light of recent world events and the rise of terrorism as a political weapon. It depends where you stand. Democracy is not something that thrills the hearts and minds of the vast majority of citizens who live in nations who declare themselves to be democratic. Apathy and cynicism work together against democratic growth. But so do governments whose declared democratic aims pay scant attention to the people they are supposed to represent. And then there are the ‹democratic› exercises which supposedly involve the people in a conversation (‹we are listening› they say) which results in the status quo being implemented by politicians with morally superior physiognomies. After all, they say, we did ask your opinions. We did ask you to participate. And so democracy staggers from crisis to disaster.

The separation of church and state disguised the coordination of two very different conceptions of liberty at work in Revolutionary America, one with a religious basis in radical Protestant thought and the other with a legal basis in the secular Enlightenment. The essay combines the disciplines of law, literature, and intellectual history to investigate these contrasting formulations and their changing relationship. Cross-cultural analysis of the language of protest in both England and America gives the investigation a crucial focus. It also explains a larger movement from direct influence to refraction in Anglo-American relations.The interdisciplinary approach is critical to understanding how the same language came to mean different things. Exegesis of the common law tradition in England and close rhetorical analysis of pulpit oratory and legal pamphleteering in Revolutionary America reveal a striking shift in the meaning of liberty as legal explanation trumped religious protest in the process of national formations. Properly understood, the paradoxical role of the American lawyer was to cap revolutionary impulses through the manipulation of the language of a bible culture. Legal positivism replaced natural law as a ruling impulse in the definition of rights, and a republic based on the right of revolution became a nation state where the test of membership would be loyalty. The long-term result has been that the citizen faces a permanent and often puzzling dichotomy best understood in dialectical terms. National identity, while secular, responds to providential invocation in the American republic of laws, and protest finds its most potent voice in religious expression.