Last month, I attended a Slow AI workshop sponsored by C21’s Human Club that centered on the practice of prompting — the everyday act of giving language-based instructions to systems like ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Claude to produce a desired response or action. Instead of machines responding to us, however, we became the ones prompted by the facilitators. Through freewriting as “human prompting,” lexical-connecting exercises, and comparative machine prompting, we enacted the same linguistic and associative processes we typically train AI systems to do.

The experience was particularly refreshing after months of dissertation writing. One simple prompt, “railroads,” sparked vivid memory work and creative experimentation: an Amtrak trip with my brother from Chicago to Los Angeles, then a fictional narrative about a train ride to Mars. It reminded me how much meaning, memory, and emotion humans embed in language, aspects machines might simulate, but can never truly feel or recall.

The workshop also brought into focus the growing stigma academia places on generative AI, often framing it as a threat to human intelligence and creativity. As an educator, I understand the frustration when students try to outsource their thinking to AI. And as a writer, I feel the anxiety too. I have even found myself avoiding my beloved em dash for fear that a polished sentence will be read as “too AI.” But is this panic fully justified or just another historical iteration of humans fearing technological advancement?

N. Katherine Hayles (2012) argues that humans and technics have long been co-evolving in a process she calls technogenesis. She reminds us that technological change “offers no guarantees” of positive progress (p. 81) as it expands how we read, write, and think. In an interview for an upcoming episode of 6.5 Minutes With…C21, media artist extends this argument into our current AI moment. His work captures how humans and technology have co-evolved over time, the cultural, aesthetic, political, and economic impacts of us on technology and vice versa. Stern suggests that the real issue isn’t AI at all, but the social and economic structures in which AI is embedded:

“AI isn’t the problem, late capitalism is. If we had meaningful social support, retraining programs, and universal healthcare, this wouldn’t feel like a crisis. We’ve panicked about new technologies before: photography was supposed to kill painting, desktop publishing was supposed to destroy creative work. Instead, they sparked new fields and new forms of art. We should approach AI the same way and leverage what it does well, let go of what it doesn’t, and rethink what’s possible. Technology expands our imagination, but it demands we imagine first.”

Stern’s point reminds us that the real question isn’t whether AI will replace human creativity, but whether we will continue to cultivate the imaginative capacities that make human creativity possible in the first place. That is precisely where my own work lives: Black girls’ radical imagination, envisioning futures that refuse erasure, and teaching us — adults, institutions, and now machines — how to imagine more expansive lives. And if we are the ones teaching AI how to think and create, we must also ask: whose imaginations are shaping these systems, and whose visions of the future risk being automated out?

Many people worry that AI will take our jobs and our purpose, but I’m more interested in what this moment reveals about us. What do we, as humans, believe counts as intelligence, creativity, and humanity? What are the things that truly make us human that we can do that machines cannot? And, simultaneously, how might these AI systems relieve some of the cognitive and administrative burdens demanded by a society obsessed with productivity?

Safiya Noble (2018) cautions that our technologies do not emerge neutral; they are built within existing systems of oppression and inherit the biases of the societies that produce them. Likewise, Ruha Benjamin (2019) warns that if we aren’t intentional, we will automate inequality rather than dismantle it. So the question is not simply what AI can do, but who AI is designed to serve, and whose ways of knowing might be excluded or overwritten in the process? The practice of imagining otherwise, then, is methodology. It is a tool for liberation. It is also training data, and it matters whose data gets to shape our machines.

Generative AI is not going anywhere. So why not teach students — and one another — how to use these tools well, as collaborators rather than shortcuts. Let’s cultivate practices that protect human curiosity, play, memory, and wonder. AI cannot replace human thought and creativity, but it can support and stretch them if we choose to design and deploy it with care.

This is a turning point for humans. A moment in history where we must decide what we refuse to automate, the parts of being human that no machine can ever take: empathy, embodied experience, lived memory, and imagination as freedom. If the future is already arriving in the form of our machines, then we owe it to ourselves to slow down and ensure we’re building a future worthy of our humanity.

References

Benjamin, R. (2019). Race after technology: Abolitionist tools for the New Jim Code / Ruha Benjamin. Polity.

Hayles, N. K. (2012). How we think: Digital media and contemporary technogenesis. The University of Chicago Press.

Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. New York University Press.

Upcoming Events

Don’t miss the new exhibition by Nathaniel Stern in collaboration with , titled , coming to the Kenilworth Square East Gallery at UW-Milwaukee from February 12–20, 2026. The show and its related programming (opening reception, panel discussion, and workshops) promise an immersive investigation of how humans and machines evolve and co-create together. This exhibition is a part of C21’s Aesthetics, Art, & AI programming in collaboration with UW-Madison’s Center for the Humanities.

The post Slow Digest: Prompting a More Human Future appeared first on Center for 21st Century Studies.

Higher education programs within the Wisconsin prison system have long been characterized by limited access, exclusionary practices, and slow advancement. For decades, deliberate policy choices have eroded educational pathways for incarcerated people. Associate’s degrees and vocational training are available in restricted forms, but the possibility of sustained intellectual growth is often hampered by structural complexities. Historically, individuals incarcerated in Wisconsin prisons have had no formal opportunity to pursue a four-year bachelor’s degree from a Wisconsin college or university.

This changed recently, in 2023, when the ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated students was lifted. Two key universities leading prison education initiatives in Wisconsin are University of Wisconsin-Madison, through its Prison Education Initiative (PEI), and Marquette University, through its Education Preparedness Program (EPP) and McNeely Prison Education Consortium (MPEC).To understand the significance of this boom in Wisconsin prison education programs, it is necessary to situate the state of higher education in Wisconsin prisons within a larger national and historical context.

President Bill Clinton’s 1994 tough-on-crime policies reduced prison education across the country from four hundred active programs to eight. Clinton’s Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act banned Pell Grant access to incarcerated individuals, which decimated prison education initiatives across the country due to their reliance on Pell Grant funding. The remaining eight prison education programs had to seek private funding or volunteer support to continue their operations. Wisconsin’s own prison education landscape suffered accordingly, as educational institutions lacked the funding and political support to sustain their programs.

It was not until 2015, under President Barack Obama, that the U.S. Department of Education launched the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative, which provided needs-based Pell Grants to select people in federal and state prisons. The initiative tested whether expanding college financial aid would increase participation in post-secondary educational opportunities. Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) was the first Wisconsin college to participate in the Second Chance program. The initiative was so successful that the data prompted Congress to act, lifting the ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated students in 2020. As of July 1, 2023, all incarcerated individuals nationwide were eligible to receive Pell Grant funding for post-secondary education. Changes seeded by the initiative came to fruition nearly thirty years after Clinton’s ban on Pell Grants. This reversal is just one of many examples of how slow institutional reform can be in the U.S.

Research has long shown that education is one of the most powerful tools of de-carceration. A landmark study by the RAND Corporation found that individuals who participate in postsecondary education programs are 43 percent less likely to return to prison after release. The Vera Institute of Justice underscores this point; its mission is to end mass incarceration, its primary strategy to achieve this goal is to provide incarcerated people with access to higher education. The Vera Institute emphasizes that higher education in prisons increases post-release employment prospects and strengthens family and community ties. By expanding degree pathways in its prisons, Wisconsin will not only invest in the transformation of individuals but also in safer institutions and healthier communities.

Marquette’s EPP started offering courses inside correctional facilities in the spring of 2022. Enrollees can earn Marquette University credits on a transcript as non-degree seeking students. As of this year, EPP operates in Racine Correctional Institution, Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility, the Community Reintegration Center, and will soon expand offerings to Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center. Many working in this space refer to Racine colloquially as the “carceral corner,” as it houses many of the prison facilities in Southeast Wisconsin.

Currently, EPP is developing a Bachelor of Arts in Peace Studies pathway for incarcerated students at Racine Correctional Institution. UW-Milwaukee is at work on another degree-granting program for system-impacted students: a Bachelor of Science in Community Engagement & Education. Both programs are slated to roll out in 2027. UW-Milwaukee faculty will begin teaching credit-bearing courses in 2026 in preparation for the formal launch in 2027. 

Marquette’s EPP and UW-Milwaukee are member schools in the McNeely Prison Education Consortium (MPEC), a remarkable coalition of institutions in Southeast Wisconsin that also includes Carroll University, Alverno College, Mount Mary University, Milwaukee School of Engineering, and Milwaukee Area Technical College. UW-Madison’s PEI collaborates with MPEC, servicing other parts of the state through UW-system schools such as UW-Greenbay, UW-Eau Claire, and UW-Stout. The Consortium’s goal is to create pathways for system-impacted learners to attain degrees by offering opportunities at both correctional facilities and college campuses. 

Educational and state institutions are not the only forces advancing education access for system-impacted people. Local non-profits, like The Community, founded by Shannon Ross, are instrumental in advocating for educational access in Wisconsin prisons and jails. The organization provides re-entry support and educational programming, such as their yearly “Correcting the Narrative” series, developed jointly with system-impacted people. The Community demonstrates that collaboration between state institutions, organizations, and those impacted by incarceration is essential if Wisconsin hopes to see its prison education programs flourish.

After decades of absence, post-secondary education is returning to prisons. The bachelor’s degrees launched by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with Marquette University and UW-Milwaukee soon to follow, are only in their infancy. These initiatives point to a future in which higher education becomes a stable and expected part of Wisconsin’s correctional landscape. The question is no longer whether incarcerated people deserve access to higher education. The question is, what will Wisconsin and you do to help build and sustain these programs that honor the aspirations and brilliance of incarcerated scholars?

Citations

Davis, Lois M., et al. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Correctional Education: A Meta-Analysis of Programs That Provide Education to Incarcerated Adults. RAND Corporation, 2013.

Sawyer, Wendy. “Since You Asked: How Did the 1994 Crime Bill Affect Prison College Programs?” Prison Policy Initiative, 22 Aug. 2019, www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2019/08/22/college-in-prison/.

Recommendations for Further Exploration:

– “The mission of Marquette University’s Education Preparedness Program (EPP) is to create pathways to higher education for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals and to expand traditional boundaries of higher education through collaboration across the Milwaukee community. The EPP is an initiative of Marquette’s Center for Urban Research, Teaching, and Outreach (CURTO) within the College of Arts and Sciences. We prioritize community-immersive practices that break down barriers and facilitate collaborative learning for personal and social transformation.” 

– “The McNeely Prison Education Consortium (MPEC) provides access to higher education for students directly impacted by the criminal legal system through a collaborative effort involving universities, colleges, correctional facilities, re-entry programs, and community organizations across Southeastern Wisconsin. By connecting these stakeholders, MPEC offers currently and formerly incarcerated students opportunities to pursue higher education degrees and educational programs. Additionally, MPEC supports higher education institutions in effectively serving these students, contributing to the development of stronger, safer, and more economically vibrant communities throughout the region.” 

– “The UW-Madison Prison Education Initiative (PEI), led by the Division of Continuing Studies, gives learners who are incarcerated in Wisconsin state prisons the opportunity to reframe their futures through higher education.”

– A Milwaukee-area non-profit whose mission is to “break down stigmas while building up futures for those with criminal records.”

– “We are advocates, researchers, and activists working to end mass incarceration.”

The post Slow Digest: Higher Education in Wisconsin Prisons appeared first on Center for 21st Century Studies.

The piece, “Citizenship is a Myth,” speaks to the crisis of citizenship that informs the Trumpian politics of membership (and all such politics from India to Hungary). In it, Aneesh argues that “it is dysfunctional to think of citizenship as a form of blanket membership in a national club; instead, citizenship has grown to be a measure of modulated access to a cluster of rights.” The article grew out of research conducted during his Fellowship year at C21.

Congratulations Aneesh!

The post Read Aneesh Aneesh’s New Piece in Noema: “Citizenship Is a Myth” appeared first on Center for 21st Century Studies.

From the publisher:
Creating Spaces of Hope explores some of the newest, most dynamic creativity emerging from young artists in Egypt and the way in which these artists engage, contest, and struggle with the social and political landscape of post-revolutionary Egypt.

Based on personal interviews with artists over many years of research in Cairo, Caroline Seymour-Jorn moves beyond current understandings of creative work primarily as a form of resistance or political commentary, providing a more nuanced analysis of creative production in the Arab world.

The post New Fellow Book: Caroline Seymour-Jorn’s Creating Spaces of Hope appeared first on Center for 21st Century Studies.

From the publisher:
Practices of Projection: Histories and Technologies addresses the cultural and technological significance of projection. Throughout the volume, chapters reiterate that projection cannot, and must not, be reduced to its cinematic functions alone. Borrowing media theorist Siegfried Zielinksi’s definition, Menotti and Crisp refer to projection as the “heterogeneous array of artefacts, technical systems, and particularly visual praxes of experimentation and of culture.” From this, readers can understand the performative character of the moving image and the labor of the different actors involved in the utterance of the film text.

The post New Fellow Book: Gabriel Menotti and Virginia Crisp’s Practices of Projection appeared first on Center for 21st Century Studies.