Introduction to the Symposium: Access to Justice: Mass Incarceration and Masculinity Through a Black Feminist Lens

This Introduction to the Symposium, Race to Justice: Mass Incarceration and Masculinity through a Black Feminist Lens, rehearses the animating forces that led to a colloquium and a series of papers that explore the question of mass incarceration and the negative state engagement surrounding it through gendered and feminist lenses. The Introduction explains how an analysis of mass incarceration through the lens of gender complicates what is often conceived as a story about race. Instead mass incarceration can be more deeply understood through its gendered effects on men and the women and children connected to those men. These connections include the social and economic conditions of the community, new forms of sexuality experienced in prison, and resulting changes in identity. Building on the work of Angela Davis and Beth Ritchie, this symposium and its papers provide new insights and frameworks for mass incarceration. Symposium authors include Angela Harris, Frank Rudy Cooper, SpearIt, Kimberly Bailey, Jessica Dixon Weaver

Introduction: Mass Incarceration and Masculinity through a Black Feminist Lense

Mass incarceration is one of the biggest obstacles to social justice and democratic equality in the United States. This nation leads the world in imprisonment. As Angela Davis contended, the prison industrial complex is much more than the sum of all the jails and prisons in this country. It is a set of symbiotic relationships among correctional communities, transnational corporations, media conglomerates, guards’ unions, and legislative and court agendas. Other developed states use social welfare policy to develop citizens’ capabilities, which increase their employment and life prospects. In stark contrast, the United States has evolved a fairly permanent underclass, which does not have access to the basic capabilities necessary to enjoy even a working-class existence. In addition, faced with the choice to classify the 1980s rise in drug addiction and expansion in illegal drug markets as either a public health or criminal crisis, the United States consistently opted for the latter. Understood in this light, the solution was clear and immediate: incarceration. This policy was part and parcel of the emergence of the prison industrial complex, which has transformed the American political economy. Much noted are the racial aspects and effects of mass incarceration, which has decimated communities of color across class and region. For this intellectual inquiry, we chose black feminism as our lens. We decided to approach this phenomenon through a gendered lens for several reasons. First, mass incarceration has deeply gendered effects that cannot be understood as purely racial products. It affects men of color as men, and not just as racialized beings. Second, as several of the papers emphasize, mass incarceration has had acute effects on families that black feminist thought is particularly well suited to address. Third, mass incarceration has introduced new forms of sexuality, both risks and desires that require a thick understanding of identity and intimacy. Finally, black feminism is particularly adept at prosecuting the gendered dimensions of power and state violence

Introduction: Mass Incarceration and Masculinity Through a Black Feminist Lens

Mass incarceration is one of the biggest obstacles to social justice and democratic equality in the United States. This nation leads the world in imprisonment. As Angela Davis contended, the “prison industrial complex is much more than the sum of all the jails and prisons in this country. It is a set of symbiotic relationships among correctional communities, transnational corporations, media conglomerates, guards’ unions, and legislative and court agendas.” Other developed states use social welfare policy to develop citizens’ capabilities, which increase their employment and life prospects. In stark contrast, the United States has evolved a fairly permanent underclass, which does not have access to the basic capabilities necessary to enjoy even a working-class existence. In addition, faced with the choice to classify the 1980s rise in drug addiction and expansion in illegal drug markets as either a public health or criminal crisis, the United States consistently opted for the latter. Understood in this light, the solution was clear and immediate: incarceration. This policy was part and parcel of the emergence of the prison industrial complex, which has transformed the American political economy. Much noted are the racial aspects and effects of mass incarceration, which has decimated communities of color across class and region. For this intellectual inquiry, we chose black feminism as our lens. We decided to approach this phenomenon through a gendered lens for several reasons. First, mass incarceration has deeply gendered effects that cannot be understood as purely racial products. It affects men of color as men, and not just as racialized beings. Second, as several of the papers emphasize, mass incarceration has had acute effects on families that black feminist thought is particularly well suited to address. Third, mass incarceration has introduced new forms of sexuality, both risks and desires that require a thick understanding of identity and intimacy. Finally, black feminism is particularly adept at prosecuting the gendered dimensions of power and state violence

The Ramanujan master theorem and its implications for special functions

We study a number of possible extensions of the Ramanujan master theorem, which is formulated here by using methods of Umbral nature. We discuss the implications of the procedure for the theory of special functions, like the derivation of formulae concerning the integrals of products of families of Bessel functions and the successive derivatives of Bessel type functions. We stress also that the procedure we propose allows a unified treatment of many problems appearing in applications, which can formally be reduced to the evaluation of exponential- or Gaussian-like integrals.Comment: 12 page

A Generalization of Chetaev's Principle for a Class of Higher Order Non-holonomic Constraints

The constraint distribution in non-holonomic mechanics has a double role. On one hand, it is a kinematic constraint, that is, it is a restriction on the motion itself. On the other hand, it is also a restriction on the allowed variations when using D'Alembert's Principle to derive the equations of motion. We will show that many systems of physical interest where D'Alembert's Principle does not apply can be conveniently modeled within the general idea of the Principle of Virtual Work by the introduction of both kinematic constraints and variational constraints as being independent entities. This includes, for example, elastic rolling bodies and pneumatic tires. Also, D'Alembert's Principle and Chetaev's Principle fall into this scheme. We emphasize the geometric point of view, avoiding the use of local coordinates, which is the appropriate setting for dealing with questions of global nature, like reduction.Comment: 27 pages. Journal of Mathematical Physics (to zappear

New solutions of Heun general equation

We show that in four particular cases the derivative of the solution of Heun general equation can be expressed in terms of a solution to another Heun equation. Starting from this property, we use the Gauss hypergeometric functions to construct series solutions to Heun equation for the mentioned cases. Each of the hypergeometric functions involved has correct singular behavior at only one of the singular points of the equation; the sum, however, has correct behavior

A transient network of telechelic polymers and microspheres : structure and rheology

We study the structure and dynamics of a transient network composed of droplets of microemulsion connected by telechelic polymers. The polymer induces a bridging attraction between droplets without changing their shape. A viscoelastic behaviour is induced in the initially liquid solution, characterised in the linear regime by a stretched exponential stress relaxation. We analyse this relaxation in the light of classical theories of transient networks. The role of the elastic reorganisations in the deformed network is emphasized. In the non linear regime, a fast relaxation dynamics is followed by a second one having the same rate as in the linear regime. This behaviour, under step strain experiments, should induce a non monotonic behaviour in the elastic component of the stress under constant shear rate. However, we obtain in this case a singularity in the flow curve very different from the one observed in other systems, that we interpret in terms of fracture behaviour.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

On Virtual Displacement and Virtual Work in Lagrangian Dynamics

The confusion and ambiguity encountered by students, in understanding virtual displacement and virtual work, is discussed in this article. A definition of virtual displacement is presented that allows one to express them explicitly for holonomic (velocity independent), non-holonomic (velocity dependent), scleronomous (time independent) and rheonomous (time dependent) constraints. It is observed that for holonomic, scleronomous constraints, the virtual displacements are the displacements allowed by the constraints. However, this is not so for a general class of constraints. For simple physical systems, it is shown that, the work done by the constraint forces on virtual displacements is zero. This motivates Lagrange's extension of d'Alembert's principle to system of particles in constrained motion. However a similar zero work principle does not hold for the allowed displacements. It is also demonstrated that d'Alembert's principle of zero virtual work is necessary for the solvability of a constrained mechanical problem. We identify this special class of constraints, physically realized and solvable, as {\it the ideal constraints}. The concept of virtual displacement and the principle of zero virtual work by constraint forces are central to both Lagrange's method of undetermined multipliers, and Lagrange's equations in generalized coordinates.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. This article is based on an earlier article physics/0410123. It includes new figures, equations and logical conten

The helium atom in a strong magnetic field

We investigate the electronic structure of the helium atom in a magnetic field b etween B=0 and B=100a.u. The atom is treated as a nonrelativistic system with two interactin g electrons and a fixed nucleus. Scaling laws are provided connecting the fixed-nucleus Hamiltonia n to the one for the case of finite nuclear mass. Respecting the symmetries of the electronic Ham iltonian in the presence of a magnetic field, we represent this Hamiltonian as a matrix with res pect to a two-particle basis composed of one-particle states of a Gaussian basis set. The corresponding generalized eigenvalue problem is solved numerically, providing in the present paper results for vanish ing magnetic quantum number M=0 and even or odd z-parity, each for both singlet and triplet spin symmetry. Total electronic energies of the ground state and the first few excitations in each su bspace as well as their one-electron ionization energies are presented as a function of the magnetic fie ld, and their behaviour is discussed. Energy values for electromagnetic transitions within the M=0 sub space are shown, and a complete table of wavelengths at all the detected stationary points with respect to their field dependence is given, thereby providing a basis for a comparison with observed ab sorption spectra of magnetic white dwarfs.Comment: 21 pages, 4 Figures, acc.f.publ.in J.Phys.