Jean Trounstine

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Jean Trounstine
Jean Trounstine, February 12, 2016
Jean Trounstine, February 12, 2016
Born (1946-12-11) December 11, 1946 (age 77)
Cincinnati, Ohio
OccupationActivist, Author, Teacher
NationalityAmerican
EducationM.F.A. Brandeis University
B.A. Beloit College
Alma materBrandies University
SpouseRobert Wald
Website
www.jeantrounstine.com

Jean Trounstine is an activist, author and professor emerita at Middlesex Community College in Lowell, Massachusetts, USA.[1]

Early life and education[edit]

Jean Trounstine, the daughter of Henry Philip and Amy Joseph Trounstine, grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio.[citation needed] She attended Walnut Hills High School (Cincinnati, Ohio), a public college-preparatory high school.[citation needed] She graduated with a B.A. in theater with honors from Beloit College in 1965, and an M.F.A. in acting from Brandeis University in 1973.[citation needed] She began her career as an actress, pursued films and theater in California and has performed in 30 plays.[2]

Teaching and activism[edit]

Trounstine taught high school English in Duxbury, Massachusetts, (1986-8) and at Nashoba Regional High School (1988-9) before joining the faculty at Middlesex Community College (Massachusetts) in 1989.[1] In 1987, she began teaching and piloted work with women, directing plays at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Framingham for almost ten years.[3] She co-founded the women's branch of Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) in 1992 with Judge Joseph Dever, First Justice of the Lynn District Court. Probationers, probation officers, judges and professors sit in a classroom together and discuss books.[4] CLTL costs less than $500 a person and proponents say that it saves the government tens of thousands of dollars when compared with the cost of housing a prisoner.[citation needed] A recidivism study of the program by Russell Schutt, a University of Massachusetts professor, showed that it helps to reduce a return to crime.[citation needed] In 2008, after Trounstine met Karter Reed, who was incarcerated in an adult prison for murder that he committed at age 16, she began researching juvenile justice.[5]

Publishing history[edit]

Date(s) Role Title
1999 Co-editor (with Robert Waxler) Changing Lives Through Literature[6]
2001, 2004 Author Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison[7]
2003 Author Almost Home Free, poetry collection about cancer[8]
2005 Co-authored (with Robert Waxler) Finding A Voice: The Practice of Changing Lives Through Literature,[9]
2006, 2007 Co-editor (with Karen Propp) Why I'm Still Married: Women Write Their Hearts Out On Love, Loss, Sex, and Who Does the Dishes [10]
2016 Author Boy With A Knife: The Story of Murder, Remorse, and A Prisoner's Fight for Justice[11]
2024 Author MotherLove, short story collection[12]

Other writing[edit]

Her writing on prison issues has been published in Working Woman magazine,[13] The Southwest Review,[14] The Boston Globe Magazine,[15] Huffington Post[16] and many other publications in the US. They include:

  • "The Memory We Call Home", The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008, Travelers' Tales[citation needed]
  • "Revisiting Sacred Spaces", Performing New Lives: Prison Theatre, 2011[17]
  • "Three Strikes and You're Out", Metrowest Daily News, January 1, 2012[18]
  • "A Gift from Prison", Solstice, fall/winter 2012[19]
  • "Locked Up With Nowhere to Go", Boston, July 2013[20]
  • "Rose", in Essays on Teaching", 2013[21]
  • "Keep Kids Out of Handcuffs", Truthout, May 2015[22]
  • "Changing Women's Lives Through Literature", Women's Review of Books, May–June 2015[23]
  • "A Year of Disaster At Old Colony: Suicide Attempts, Self-Harm, and COVID", DIGBos, May 2021[24]

Prizes and awards[edit]

Trounstine has won many awards for her work. She won a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1987 to study Shakespeare in England.[citation needed] She won grants from the Massachusetts Foundation for Humanities in 1988, 1989 and 1990[citation needed] to create theater for women in prison. She was a recipient for "Women who Care" presented by Women in Philanthropy in 1993.[25] In 2000, she was named a "Woman who Dared" by the Jewish Women's Archive for her work in prison.[26] In 2001, she received an honorable mention for the Ernest Lynton Award for outstanding college teachers nationally who excel in outreach to the community[citation needed] Her piece, "Meeting Karter", won an honorable mention for non-fiction in Solstice magazine's 2010 Summer issue.[citation needed] In 2018, the Internation Gramsci Prize was awarded to here and presented to her in Italy for her work in literature and prison, recognizing the rights of women held in prisons throughout the world.[27]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Faculty Directory Jean Trounstine". Middlesex Community College.[dead link]
  2. ^ Elizabeth Lund (July 5, 2001). "Putting drama into prison's stark life". The Christian Science Monitor.
  3. ^ "Jean Trounstine - Shakespeare Behind Bars". University of Notre Dame.[dead link]
  4. ^ William J. Dowd. "Marblehead judge, Joseph Dever, dies at 80". The Patriot Ledger. Quincy, Massachusetts.[dead link]
  5. ^ Christopher Zoukis (December 15, 2015). "Prison Is No Place for Kids: An Interview with Author Jean Trounstine". The Huffington Post.
  6. ^ Trounstine, Jean (1999). Changing Lives Through Literature. University of Notre Dame Press.
  7. ^ Trounstine, Jean (2001). Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison. St. Martin's Press, paperback University of Michigan Press.
  8. ^ Trounstine, Jean (2003). "Almost Home Free, poetry collection about cancer". Pecan Grove Press.
  9. ^ Trounstine, Jean. Finding A Voice: The Practice of Changing Lives Through Literature. University of Michigan Press.
  10. ^ Trounstine, Jean (2006). Shifting Fortunes: The Perils of the Growing American Wealth Gap. Hudson Street Press (Penguin), Plume paperback.
  11. ^ Trounstine, Jean (April 2016). Boy With A Knife: The Story of Murder, Remorse, and A Prisoner's Fight for Justice. Ig Press.
  12. ^ Trounstine, Jean (March 2024). MotherLove. Concord Free Press.
  13. ^ "printguide".[dead link]
  14. ^ Trounstine, Jean (2000). "Throw Away the Key". Southwest Review. 85 (3): 433–445. JSTOR 43472098.(subscription required)
  15. ^ "Prison drama".[dead link]
  16. ^ Christopher Zoukis; Jean Trounstine (February 9, 2016). "Kids Can Change: Stop Sending Juveniles to Adult Prisons and Jails". The Huffington Post.
  17. ^ "Now Presenting Now in Print". Middlesex Community College. Spring 2011.[dead link]
  18. ^ "Three Strikes and You're Out". Metrowest Daily News. January 1, 2012.[dead link]
  19. ^ "A Gift from Prison". Solstice. Fall–Winter 2012.
  20. ^ "Locked Up With Nowhere to Go". Boston. July 2013.
  21. ^ Robert Blaisdell, ed. (2013). "Rose". Essays on Teaching. ISBN 978-0486489018.
  22. ^ "Keep Kids Out of Handcuffs". Truthout. May 2015.[dead link]
  23. ^ "Changing Women's Lives through Literature". Women's Review of Books. May–June 2015. Archived from the original on May 4, 2016 – via HighBeam.
  24. ^ Trounstine, Jean (May 3, 2021). "A Year of Disaster At Old Colony: Suicide Attempts, Self-Harm, and COVID". DIGBoston. Retrieved August 6, 2021.
  25. ^ - page 3[dead link]
  26. ^ "Jean Trounstine". The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women.
  27. ^ "2018 Gramsci Prize to Jean Trounstine". International Network Theatre in Prison. December 1, 2018. Retrieved August 6, 2021.
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