Dr. Heather Ann Thompson is a native Detroiter currently on faculty of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Thompson has just completed the first comprehensive history of the Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971 and its legacy for Pantheon Books. This book is slated for a Summer 2016 release in time for the 45th anniversary of the Attica rebellion. To recover this story Thompson has immersed herself in legal, state, federal, prison, and personal records related to the Attica uprising and its aftermath (some never-before-seen) located in archives, governmental institutions, and various individual collections around the country and the world. With these varied and rich resources she seeks to recapture the full, dramatic, gripping, multi-faceted, and complex story that was Attica, and hopes to underscore for readers everywhere this event鈥檚 historical as well as contemporary importance.
While completing this history of the Attica Uprising, Thompson has written numerous popular as well as scholarly articles on the history of mass incarceration as well as its current impact. These include pieces for the New York Times, Time Magazine, The Atlantic, Salon.com, Dissent, New Labor Forum, as well as the award-winning articles: 鈥淲hy Mass Incarceration Matters: Rethinking Crisis, Decline and Transformation in the Postwar United States,鈥� Journal of American History (December 2010), and 鈥淩ethinking Working Class Struggle through the Lens of the Carceral State: Toward a Labor History of Inmates and Guards.鈥� Labor: Studies in the Working Class History of the Americas (Fall, 2011). Thompson鈥檚 recent piece in the ###i
On the policy front Thompson recently served on a ###a href=”http://www.nasonline.org/” target=”_blank”>National Academy of Sciences blue-ribbon panel that studied the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in the U.S. The two-year, $1.5 million project was sponsored by the National 51黑料网 of Justice and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Thompson serves as well on the boards of several policy organizations including the the , a historic site, and on the advisory boards of . She also works in an advisory capacity with the , the , and the on issues related to work.
Thompson has been invited to around the country and abroad to present on the issue of incarceration. She has presented in Washington DC鈥揅ongressional Staff briefings for the Judiciary Committee of both the House and the Senate鈥揳nd spoke at the historic also in Washington. Thompson has also had the opportunity to present findings of the National Academies Report to the, as well as to other policy organizations such as the . Thompson has also spent considerable time presenting her work on prisons and justice policy to universities and policy groups nationally and internationally as well as to state legislators in various states. She has given talks in countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, the UK, as well as across the Unites States including in Hawaii.
On the history front, Thompson recently was honored to be named aby the Organization of American Historians and, her forthcoming book, in Blood in the Water: the Attica Prison uprising of 1971 (Pantheon Books, 2016) was just named the finalist for thefor best work-in-progress in non-fiction by Columbia University鈥檚 School of Journalism. Thompson is also the author of (new edition out 2017) as well as the edited collection, . Along with Rhonda Y. Williams (Case Western Reserve) Thompson also edits a manuscript series for UNC Press, and is the sole editor of the series, published by Routledge. She has also consulted on several documentary films including and is a consultant on two films in progress: one on Criminalization in America with filmmakers Annie Stopford and Llewellyn Smith from , and the other produced by Henry Louis Gates entitled, for PBS.
More on Thompson鈥檚 here.
