The Logic and Legacy of American Punitiveness

Recent scholarship from the colonial period to the twenty-first century reveals the archival truths of America’s enduring punishment logic, often framed in stark contrast to the nation as a shining beacon of freedom and democracy. This talk will highlight this version of American exceptionalism based on new findings in the literature, consistent with The Condemnation of Blackness.

Khalil Gibran Muhammad is a professor of history, race and public policy at Harvard Kennedy School and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. His academic work focuses on racial criminalization and the origins of the carceral state. He is the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Harvard University Press, 2010), which won the 2011 John Hope Franklin Best Book Award in American Studies. His articles and scholarship have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, New Yorker, and theWashington Post.