This essay argues that while fostering individual and collaborative literacy can indeed promote self-awareness, confidence, and political awareness, the threat of emotional and material retribution is ever-present in jail, making the development of infrastructure challenging. Such reality compels engaged teacher-researchers to develop tactical methods for promoting literacy with limited social and material support from institutions that are primarily invested in compliant behavior. Rather than relying upon traditional models for building engaged university-community infrastructure in such contexts, I suggest a participatory curatorial model and explore the notion of curating a program within an ever-shifting set of artists, regulations, allegiances, and expectations.

Entering jail is an assault on the senses. Thick recirculated air feels either drafty or stuffy, never comfortable. The walls protrude with a stark, dingy white, bare of character or care. The smell is sterile, some unidentifiable cleanser stinging the tongue and nostrils. Doors clang shut and open via invisible mechanics. The wall-mounted eye of the panopticon is omnipresent.

This essay explores the intersection between writing studies and civic engagement through the action projects developed in E465: Prison Literature and Writing. Such literacy activism creates immediate opportunities for advanced undergraduates to more fully understand the work of literacy in contested spaces like jail and extends a call to action for writing teachers to acknowledge the possibility of community-based writing collaborations.