The capture and confinement of human beings has been—and remains—a central feature of warfare and periods of mass violence both within and between nation-states and among non-state actors. Prisoners apprehended and held during times of conflict—whether military or political—have been both blessing and curse to their keepers. While often valued as cheap labor and lucrative bargaining chips, the high costs—economic, social, political, and environmental—associated with mass imprisonment continue to challenge even the best organized bureaucratic states. This conference seeks to explore these historical and contemporary dynamics across geographic time and space. We welcome interdisciplinary scholarship on topics including, but not limited to, the following:

Prisoner of war camps
Prison towns
Civilian prisoners in wartime
Political imprisonment
Prison culture
Prison violence
Treatment of prisoners
Prison labor in wartime
Race, class, gender, and prison in wartime
Prison architecture and design
Environmental impacts of mass imprisonment

The one-day conference will be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, located at 365 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, on Friday, May 11, 2018. We envision a program free of geographical, chronological, or methodological restraints.

Individual paper proposals of no more than 300 words and a short CV should be sent to Clarence (Jeff) Hall (chall@qcc.cuny.edu) and Sarah Danielsson (sdanielsson@gc.cuny.edu) no later than December 15, 2017. Accepted presenters will be notified in early 2018. Interested presenters may also be considered for publication in an anthology tentatively scheduled for 2019.