Colin Dayan
Encyclopedia
Colin Dayan, is the Robert Penn Warren
Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University
, where she teaches American Studies, comparative literature, and the religious and legal history of the Americas. She has written extensively on prison law and torture, Caribbean
culture and literary history, as well as on Haitian poetics, Edgar Allan Poe
, and the history of slavery. After receiving her Ph.D. from the City University of New York
Graduate Center in 1980, she taught at Princeton University
, Yale University
, the City University of New York, the University of Arizona
, and the University of Pennsylvania
.
After publishing A Rainbow for the Christian West (1977), an introduction to René Depestre
’s poetry and a translation of his long poem Un arc-en-ciel pour l’occident chrétien, she turned to early American literature and published Fables of Mind: An Inquiry into Poe’s Fiction (1987). Haiti, History, and the Gods (1995, 1998) reorients the study of Haitian history through what she calls “literary fieldwork.” In the process, she recasts many boundaries: between politics and poetics, between the secular and the sacred, and between the colonizer and the colonized, those who deemed themselves masters and those who worked as slaves. Her most recent publication, The Story of Cruel and Unusual (2007), focuses on the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and traces the precedents for the torture of detainees in the “war on terror.” The Law is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons was published by Princeton University Press in Spring 2011.
Dayan has received an NEH fellowship (1986); a Guggenheim fellowship (2005) recognized her work on conditions of disfigured personhood and civil death that long outlives slavery itself. She has been a fellow at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center in the Department of History and a fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs, both at Princeton. Her memoirs of growing up in Atlanta, Georgia have been published in The Yale Review, Southwest Review, and The Arizona Quarterly. A contributor to the London Review of Books
and Boston Review
, she writes on contemporary legal practices and the logic of punishment in supermaxes, Abu Ghraib, and Guantánamo.
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the influential literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935...
Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...
, where she teaches American Studies, comparative literature, and the religious and legal history of the Americas. She has written extensively on prison law and torture, Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
culture and literary history, as well as on Haitian poetics, Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, and the history of slavery. After receiving her Ph.D. from the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
Graduate Center in 1980, she taught at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, the City University of New York, the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
, and the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
.
After publishing A Rainbow for the Christian West (1977), an introduction to René Depestre
René Depestre
René Depestre is a Haitian poet and communist. He lived in Cuba as an exile from the Duvalier regime for many years and was a founder of the Casa de las Americas publishing house. He is best known for his poetry.-Life:...
’s poetry and a translation of his long poem Un arc-en-ciel pour l’occident chrétien, she turned to early American literature and published Fables of Mind: An Inquiry into Poe’s Fiction (1987). Haiti, History, and the Gods (1995, 1998) reorients the study of Haitian history through what she calls “literary fieldwork.” In the process, she recasts many boundaries: between politics and poetics, between the secular and the sacred, and between the colonizer and the colonized, those who deemed themselves masters and those who worked as slaves. Her most recent publication, The Story of Cruel and Unusual (2007), focuses on the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and traces the precedents for the torture of detainees in the “war on terror.” The Law is a White Dog: How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons was published by Princeton University Press in Spring 2011.
Dayan has received an NEH fellowship (1986); a Guggenheim fellowship (2005) recognized her work on conditions of disfigured personhood and civil death that long outlives slavery itself. She has been a fellow at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center in the Department of History and a fellow in the Program in Law and Public Affairs, both at Princeton. Her memoirs of growing up in Atlanta, Georgia have been published in The Yale Review, Southwest Review, and The Arizona Quarterly. A contributor to the London Review of Books
London Review of Books
The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
and Boston Review
Boston Review
Boston Review is a bimonthly American political and literary magazine. The magazine covers, specifically, political debates, literature, and poetry...
, she writes on contemporary legal practices and the logic of punishment in supermaxes, Abu Ghraib, and Guantánamo.
External links
- Barbarous Confinement, New York Times
- Like a Dog, Boston Review
- The Law is a White Dog, Princeton University Press
- Dead Dogs: Breed bans, euthanasia, and preemptive justice, Boston Review
- Civilizing Haiti, Boston Review
- Dangerous Dogs, London Review of Books
- Between the Devil and the Deep Sea, Boston Review
- Out of Defeat: Aimé Césaire’s Miraculous Words, Boston Review
- The Story of Cruel and Unusual
- Haiti, History, and the Gods, University of California Press
- Words Behind Bars, Boston Review
- Cruel and Unusual, Boston Review
- Lecture “The Story of Cruel and Unusual” (November 7, 2007)
- Lecture “Words Behind Bars” (May 8, 2008)
- Colin Dayan Website