1st Edition

Critical Prison Theory and Literature Palimpsest

By Noe Martinez, Sarah Higinbotham Copyright 2026
204 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

204 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

204 Pages 7 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

In a concrete classroom, two hands meet in a welcome handshake. One belongs to a professor who has never seen the inside of a cell and the other to a graffiti artist whose decade behind bars taught him to read power like fault lines in stone. Eleven years later, that handshake has transformed into Critical Prison Theory and Literature: Palimpsest. The authors put themselves, stories, and... Read more

Introduction: The Handshake

Chapter 1: Retribution

Chapter 2: Isolation

Chapter 3: Trauma and Moral Injury

Chapter 4: Creativity

Chapter 5: Restorative Justice

Conclusion: The Graffiti Wall

Biography

Noe Martinez, a formerly incarcerated artist and author of Mexican and Apache descent, has published on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, co-authored an academic chapter on how to teach math inside prison, and has been featured widely in art exhibitions.

Sarah Higinbotham is an Associate Professor of English at Emory University's Oxford College. She co-founded a statewide program for college programming inside state prisons and has taught more than 4,000 hours of literature studies inside men’s and women’s prisons.