Finding Solutions With Benjamin Weber

Associate professor of African American studies Benjamin Weber joins Chancellor Gary S. May on this month’s episode of Face to Face. Weber was part of the 2020-21 cohort of CAMPSSAH (Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspective on Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities) Faculty Scholars.

Weber’s work is centered around the history of social movements, the impacts of colonialism and racial inequality. He analyzes the past to inform solving today’s biggest problems, such as mass incarceration, which is the focus of his new book, American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration. The book traces the historical legacies of prisons and efforts to reform them.

“Historians and policymakers and Black studies professors are always trying to figure out: ‘How do we get one step ahead of these reforms that in name are trying to rehabilitate, but then produce both intended and unintended consequences?’” he said.

Missing link

A product of the Bay Area, Weber earned his Ph.D. and master’s degree in history from Harvard, yet he felt something was missing from his curricula. African American studies provided “the missing framework” for Weber to analyze history with a new lens, he said.

Hear Weber and May discuss the Open Letters from Prison project, a pandemic-era writing group with prisoners that broke the added isolation of COVID-19 restrictions. They also discuss their hopes for the Austin and Arutha Goss Presidential Endowed Chair, the university’s first in the Department of African American and African Studies.

Stick around for playlist recommendations and a timely answer to a hypothetical dinner date scenario.

More on Weber

More on Weber

Weber is an interdisciplinary scholar of African American history, critical carceral studies, and Black social and political thought. When he joined UC Davis in 2020, he was selected as one of six CAMPSSAH Faculty Scholars for his outstanding achievements in his field and commitment to equity in higher education. He has been recognized for his research and teaching, including being named the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Outstanding Teacher of the Year for the United States. He received an Omni Gold Award for the Calderwood U.S. History Series he hosted on PBS Learning Media. He co-directed Louisiana's contribution to the States of Incarceration national public history project. Weber also led a project called Open Letters from Prison project, which was a pandemic-era writing group that wrote with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners to address the isolation from restricted visitations.

Weber’s new book, American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration, (The New Press, 2023), is “a 400-year reckoning with the colonial workings of the carceral state and movements seeking to broaden the meaning and experience of freedom.” It seeks to understand the root causes of modern mass incarceration and uplift solutions from a global lens. 

Weber will be offering a newly developed course on Black Human Rights Tradition for the first time during the winter quarter of the 2024-25 academic year. The course demonstrates a collaboration between the Department of African American and African Studies and the Human Rights Studies program.