Love and Philosophy Between Prison Walls and Ivory Towers

In 1987, while teaching a class at MIT [the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] on nonviolence, philosophy lecturer Lee Perlman had a novel idea: "Why not take the students to a prison, to talk with men who had committed extreme forms of violence?" Now, 30 years later, through the MIT Prison Initiative that he founded, Perlman teaches classes to a mixed cohort of both MIT students and prisoners at two medium- to maximum-security Massachusetts Correctional Institutions in Norfolk and Framingham. Dr. Perlman considers himself to be primarily an educator, and has designed and taught a number of courses at MIT which offer students an integrated view of the humanities and sciences in the western tradition. More in this in-depth interview.

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