{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/99104"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/99104","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Against social death: rhetorical resilience at the intersection of higher education and the prison","abstract":"“Against Social Death: Rhetorical Resilience at the Intersection of Higher Education and the Prison” is a qualitative study of the experiences of formerly incarcerated people who participated in college programming in prison or upon their release. Throughout, I argue that incarcerated people engage in everyday rhetorical practice in their resistance to social death. Specifically, I chronicle how the convergence of higher education and the prison produces new rhetorical possibilities through which these students’ rhetorical resilience is strengthened, amplified, and practiced in new ways. At the same time, while research participants often say these college-in-prison programs are life-changing, even life-saving, they rarely report that they are able to leverage their education for material gains once they are released. This notion runs counter to common literacy myths about higher education in prison, which suggest that advanced literacy leads to better economic opportunities and greater assimilation with mainstream society for people who are lacking in both opportunity and ability. By focusing on moments of convergence between everyday rhetorical resistance and the privileged practices of the university, “Against Social Death” examines how incarcerated college students navigate academic practices to create an identity and social connectedness that is habitable, authentic, and resistant to the social mechanisms and logics that would reduce them to absence, automation, and powerlessness. Most significantly, my dissertation envisions pedagogy that can facilitate these students’ educational goals without leaving unchallenged the carceral logics that frame them in deficit terms. My work offers guidance for literacy educators working with marginalized students, but ultimately, I argue that a commitment to equity and justice cannot be addressed through the writing classroom alone and requires other forms of political action.","abstract_html":"“Against Social Death: Rhetorical Resilience at the Intersection of Higher Education and the Prison” is a qualitative study of the experiences of formerly incarcerated people who participated in college programming in prison or upon their release. Throughout, I argue that incarcerated people engage in everyday rhetorical practice in their resistance to social death. Specifically, I chronicle how the convergence of higher education and the prison produces new rhetorical possibilities through which these students’ rhetorical resilience is strengthened, amplified, and practiced in new ways. At the same time, while research participants often say these college-in-prison programs are life-changing, even life-saving, they rarely report that they are able to leverage their education for material gains once they are released. This notion runs counter to common literacy myths about higher education in prison, which suggest that advanced literacy leads to better economic opportunities and greater assimilation with mainstream society for people who are lacking in both opportunity and ability. By focusing on moments of convergence between everyday rhetorical resistance and the privileged practices of the university, “Against Social Death” examines how incarcerated college students navigate academic practices to create an identity and social connectedness that is habitable, authentic, and resistant to the social mechanisms and logics that would reduce them to absence, automation, and powerlessness. Most significantly, my dissertation envisions pedagogy that can facilitate these students’ educational goals without leaving unchallenged the carceral logics that frame them in deficit terms. My work offers guidance for literacy educators working with marginalized students, but ultimately, I argue that a commitment to equity and justice cannot be addressed through the writing classroom alone and requires other forms of political action.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Shelledy, Maggie Johanne"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"English","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Schaffner, Spencer","Prior, Paul","Ginsburg, Rebecca","Vieira, Kate"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2018,"date_issued":"2018-03-02T19:59:40Z","date_published":"2018-03-02T19:59:40Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:37Z","subjects":["Rhetoric","Qualitative interviews","Carceral studies","Posthumanism","Agency","Higher education","Prisons"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2017 Maggie Shelledy"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99104","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Schaffner, Spencer","Prior, Paul","Ginsburg, Rebecca","Vieira, Kate"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Shelledy, Maggie Johanne"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2018-03-02T19:59:40Z","2020-03-03T10:15:18Z","2017-07-14","2017-08"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["English"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Rhetoric","Qualitative interviews","Carceral studies","Posthumanism","Agency","Higher education","Prisons"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2017 Maggie Shelledy"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99104"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["“Against Social Death: Rhetorical Resilience at the Intersection of Higher Education and the Prison” is a qualitative study of the experiences of formerly incarcerated people who participated in college programming in prison or upon their release. Throughout, I argue that incarcerated people engage in everyday rhetorical practice in their resistance to social death. Specifically, I chronicle how the convergence of higher education and the prison produces new rhetorical possibilities through which these students’ rhetorical resilience is strengthened, amplified, and practiced in new ways. At the same time, while research participants often say these college-in-prison programs are life-changing, even life-saving, they rarely report that they are able to leverage their education for material gains once they are released. This notion runs counter to common literacy myths about higher education in prison, which suggest that advanced literacy leads to better economic opportunities and greater assimilation with mainstream society for people who are lacking in both opportunity and ability. By focusing on moments of convergence between everyday rhetorical resistance and the privileged practices of the university, “Against Social Death” examines how incarcerated college students navigate academic practices to create an identity and social connectedness that is habitable, authentic, and resistant to the social mechanisms and logics that would reduce them to absence, automation, and powerlessness. Most significantly, my dissertation envisions pedagogy that can facilitate these students’ educational goals without leaving unchallenged the carceral logics that frame them in deficit terms. My work offers guidance for literacy educators working with marginalized students, but ultimately, I argue that a commitment to equity and justice cannot be addressed through the writing classroom alone and requires other forms of political action.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01","The student, Maggie Shelledy, accepted the attached license on 2017-07-13 at 13:35.","The student, Maggie Shelledy, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2017-07-13 at 13:40.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2017-07-14 at 09:42.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11454 on 2018-03-02 at 13:02:11","Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-02T19:59:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 SHELLEDY-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf: 1202134 bytes, checksum: e2ab363fadd74208bd76e503b91aec62 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4212 bytes, checksum: abf0edd5ac5bfebdd4351ae3275f2383 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-07-14","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 105058 Lift date: 2020-03-02T19:59:52Z Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 105058 Lift date: 2020-03-02T20:02:46Z Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","U of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 105058 on 2020-03-03T10:15:18Z."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Against social death: rhetorical resilience at the intersection of higher education and the prison"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Schaffner, Spencer","Prior, Paul","Ginsburg, Rebecca","Vieira, Kate"],"dc:creator":["Shelledy, Maggie Johanne"],"dc:date":["2018-03-02T19:59:40Z","2020-03-03T10:15:18Z","2017-07-14","2017-08"],"dc:description":["“Against Social Death: Rhetorical Resilience at the Intersection of Higher Education and the Prison” is a qualitative study of the experiences of formerly incarcerated people who participated in college programming in prison or upon their release. Throughout, I argue that incarcerated people engage in everyday rhetorical practice in their resistance to social death. Specifically, I chronicle how the convergence of higher education and the prison produces new rhetorical possibilities through which these students’ rhetorical resilience is strengthened, amplified, and practiced in new ways. At the same time, while research participants often say these college-in-prison programs are life-changing, even life-saving, they rarely report that they are able to leverage their education for material gains once they are released. This notion runs counter to common literacy myths about higher education in prison, which suggest that advanced literacy leads to better economic opportunities and greater assimilation with mainstream society for people who are lacking in both opportunity and ability. By focusing on moments of convergence between everyday rhetorical resistance and the privileged practices of the university, “Against Social Death” examines how incarcerated college students navigate academic practices to create an identity and social connectedness that is habitable, authentic, and resistant to the social mechanisms and logics that would reduce them to absence, automation, and powerlessness. Most significantly, my dissertation envisions pedagogy that can facilitate these students’ educational goals without leaving unchallenged the carceral logics that frame them in deficit terms. My work offers guidance for literacy educators working with marginalized students, but ultimately, I argue that a commitment to equity and justice cannot be addressed through the writing classroom alone and requires other forms of political action.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2019-08-01","The student, Maggie Shelledy, accepted the attached license on 2017-07-13 at 13:35.","The student, Maggie Shelledy, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2017-07-13 at 13:40.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2017-07-14 at 09:42.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #11454 on 2018-03-02 at 13:02:11","Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-02T19:59:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 SHELLEDY-DISSERTATION-2017.pdf: 1202134 bytes, checksum: e2ab363fadd74208bd76e503b91aec62 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4212 bytes, checksum: abf0edd5ac5bfebdd4351ae3275f2383 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-07-14","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 105058 Lift date: 2020-03-02T19:59:52Z Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 105058 Lift date: 2020-03-02T20:02:46Z Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","U of I Only Restriction Lifted for Item 105058 on 2020-03-03T10:15:18Z."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99104"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2017 Maggie Shelledy"],"dc:subject":["Rhetoric","Qualitative interviews","Carceral studies","Posthumanism","Agency","Higher education","Prisons"],"dc:title":["Against social death: rhetorical resilience at the intersection of higher education and the prison"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["English"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:37Z"}