STS.062
Drugs, Politics, and Culture
Spring 2006
Topics
- Introduction
- Some Preliminary Ideas
- Alcohol in the U.S.
- Alcohol Across Cultures
- “Primitive” Drugs
- Drugs and American Counterculture
- Cocaine, Latin America and Globalization
- Cocaine Consumption
- Crack Dealers
- The War on Drugs
- The War on Drugs (cont.)
- Modern Pharmaceuticals: Sex
- Modern Pharmaceuticals: Prozac®
- Big Pharma
Readings
- Weil, Andrew, and Winifred Rosen. From Chocolate to Morphine . Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. ISBN: 9780618483792.
- Myerhoff, Barbara. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976. ISBN: 9780801491375.
- Bourgois, Philippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780521574600.
- Slater, Lauren. Prozac® Diary . New York, NY: Penguin, 1998. ISBN: 9780140263947.
- Angell, Marcia. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How they Deceive Us and What to do about it . New York, NY: Random House, 2004. ISBN: 9780375508462.
- Kuhn, Cynthia, Scott Swartzwelder, and Wilkie Wilson. Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs From Alcohol to Ecstasy . New York, NY: Norton, 1998. ISBN: 9780393317329.
- Inciardi, James, and Karen McElrath, eds. The American Drug Scene: An Anthology . 3rd ed. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury, 2000. ISBN: 9781891487361.
- Goode, Erich. Drugs in American Society . 6th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004. ISBN: 9780072874983.
- Weil, and Rosen. From Chocolate to Morphine. pp. 9-35 and 161-182.
- Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants . New York, NY: Vintage, 1993, pp. 15-84 and 167-187. ISBN: 9780679744382.
- Becker, Howard. “Becoming a Marihuana User.” American Journal of Sociology 59 (1953): 235-242.
- Zailkas, Koren. “First Taste.” From Her Smashed: Story of a Drunken Childhood . New York, NY: Viking, 2005, pp. 3-25. ISBN: 9780670033768.
- Lenson, David. “Preface,” and “User Construction.” In On Drugs . Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Press, 1995, pp. ix-xx and 55-64. ISBN: 9780816627103.
- Movie: Reefer Madness Kuhn, Cynthia, Scott Swartzwelder, and Wilkie Wilson. “Alcohol.” In Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs From Alcohol to Ecstasy . New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1998, pp. 29-54. ISBN: 9780393045888.
- Lender, Mark, and James Martin. Drinking in America: A History . New York, NY: Free Press, 1987, pp. 41-86, 102-168, and 182-191. ISBN: 9780029185704.
- Wechsler, Henry. “Health and Behavioral Consequences of Binge Drinking in College.” Journal of the American Medical Association 272, no. 21 (1994): 1672-1676.
- Seaman, Barrett. “The Campus Alcohol Crisis,” and “What’s the Right Drinking Age?” Chapters 5 and 11 in Binge: What your College Student won’t Tell you: Campus Life in an Age of Disconnection and Excess . Hoboken, NJ: Jonathan Wiley, 2005. ISBN: 9780471491194.
- Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants . New York, NY: Vintage, 1993, pp. 147-166. ISBN: 9780679744382.
- Guest Speaker: Alcoholics Anonymous Mandelbaum, David. “Alcohol and Culture.” Current Anthropology 6, no. 3 (1965): 281-288.
- Leacock, Seth. “Ceremonial Drinking in an Afro-Brazilian Cult.” American Anthropologist 66, no. 2 (1964): 344-354.
- Scully, Pamela. “Liquor and Labor in the Western Cape, 1870-1900.” In Liquor and Labor in Southern Africa . Edited by Jonathan Crush and Charles Ambler. Athens, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1992, pp. 56-77. ISBN: 9780821410271.
- Burovoy, Amy. The Too-Good Wife: Alcohol, Codependency, and the Politics of Nurturance in Postwar Japan . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005, pp. 1-15, and 42-66. ISBN: 9780520244528.
- Spicer, Paul. “Toward a (Dys)functional Anthropology of Drinking: Ambivalence and the American Indian Experience with Alcohol.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 11, no. 3 (1993): 306-323.
- Erdrich, Louise. “Foreword.” In The Broken Cord. Edited by Michael Dorris. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1989, pp. xi-xx. ISBN: 9780060160715.
- Documentary: The Peyote Road Myerhoff, Barbara. Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974.
- Calabrese, Joseph. “The Supreme Court Versus Peyote: Consciousness, Alteration, Cultural Psychiatry and the Dilemma of Contemporary Subcultures.” Anthropology of Consciousness 12, no. 2 (2001): 4-19.
- Movie: Timothy Leary is Dead Stevens, Jay. Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 1988, pp. 136-170 and 291-319. ISBN: 9780060971724.
- Eisner, Bruce. “Dazed in the Desert at the End of Time.” In Tripping: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures . Edited by Charles Hayes. New York, NY: Penguin, 2000, pp. 78-85. ISBN: 9780140195743.
- Collin, Matthew. “The Chemical Generation.” Chapter 8 in Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House . London, UK: Serpent’s Tail, 1998, pp. 267-316. ISBN: 9781852426040.
- Lenson, David. “Acid Metaphysics.” In On Drugs . Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Press, 1995, pp. 143-158. ISBN: 9780816627103.
- Morales, Edmundo. Cocaine: White Gold Rush in Peru . Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1989, pp. 13-24, 67-93, and 121-158. ISBN: 9780816510665.
- Roldan, Mary. “Columbia: Cocaine and the ‘Miracle’ of Modernity in Medellin.” In Cocaine: Global Histories . Edited by Paul Gootenberg. New York, NY: Routledge Press, 1999, pp. 165-182. ISBN: 9780415220019.
- Taussig, Michael. My Cocaine Museum . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004, pp. 13-20. ISBN: 9780226790084.
- Freud, Sigmund. “On Coca.” Reprinted in White Lines: Writers on Cocaine . Edited by Stephen Hyde and Geno Zanetti. New York, NY: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002, pp. 26-49. ISBN: 9781560253785.
- Lenson, David. “Blow Money: Cocaine, Currency and Consumerism.” In On Drugs . Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Press, 1995, pp.173-178. ISBN: 9780816627103.
- Bourgois, Philippe. Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996, introduction and chapters 1-2.
- SES #: L9 · TOPICS: Crack Dealers · READINGS: Guest Speakers Finish Bourgois.
- Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. Swiss Drugs Policy (undated). (skim.)
- Musto, David F. “Opium, Cocaine and Marijuana in American History.” Scientific American (1991): 21-33.
- Booth, Martin. “The Fantasy Traders.” In Opium: A History by Martin Booth . New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 1998, pp. 108-139. ISBN: 9780312186432.
- Risen, James. “Losing Afghanistan.” Chapter 7 in State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration . New York, NY: Free Press, 2006, pp. 149-172. ISBN: 9780743270663.
- Schlosser, Eric. “Reefer Madness.” Chapter 1 in Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American black market . Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, pp. 11-74. ISBN: 9780618334667.
- Bertram, Eve, Morris Blachman, Kenneth Sharpe, and Peter Andreas. “Three Fatal Flaws in the War on Drugs.” In Drug War Politics . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996, pp.9-31. ISBN: 9780520203099.
- Marez, Curtis. “Introduction.” In Drug Wars: The Political Economy of Narcotics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004, pp. 1-31. ISBN: 9780816640591.
- Shenk, Joshua Wolf. “America’s Altered States.” Harper’s , May 1999, 38-52.
- Lenson, David. “Pharmaka and Pharmakos,” and “Toward a Diversity of Consciousness.” In On Drugs . Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota Press, 1995, pp.7-24 and 189-201. ISBN: 9780816627103.
- Tone, Andrea. Devices and Desires: A History of Contraceptives in America . New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2001, chapters 4 (optional), 10, and epilogue, pp. 67-87, 233-260, and 285-292. ISBN: 9780809038176.
- Loe, Meika. The Rise of Viagra®: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2004, chapters 1, 4, and 6, pp. 7-28, 95-124, and 167-182. ISBN: 9780814752005.
- Silverstein, Ken. “Millions for Viagra®, Pennies for the Poor.” The Nation , July 19, 1999, 13-19.
- Documentary: Happy Valley Kramer, Peter. “The Message in the Capsule.” In Listening to Prozac®: A Psychiatrist Explores Antidepressant Drugs and the Remaking of the Self . New York, NY: Viking, 1993.
- Slater, Lauren. Prozac® Diary .
- SES #: L14 · TOPICS: Big Pharma · READINGS: Angell, Marcia. The Truth About the Drug Companies.
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗Historical OpenCourseWare
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.