This section contains the readings for the course. Since participation counts as 20% towards a student’s grade, students are expected to complete the readings for each session before class.
Books
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.
Recommended Readings
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.
Readings by Session
The table below provides information about the course’s lecture (L) and quiz (Q) sessions.
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| L1 | Introduction | |
| L2 | Some Preliminary Ideas |
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. |
| L3 | Alcohol in the U.S. |
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. |
| L4 | Alcohol Across Cultures |
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. |
| L5 | “Primitive” Drugs |
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. |
| L6 | Drugs and American Counterculture |
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. |
| L7 | Cocaine, Latin America and Globalization |
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. |
| L8 | Cocaine Consumption |
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. |
| Q1 | Quiz 1 | |
| L9 | Crack Dealers | Guest Speakers Finish Bourgois. |
| L10 | The War on Drugs |
Office of National Drug Control Policy 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. |
| L11 | The War on Drugs (cont.) |
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. |
| L12 | Modern Pharmaceuticals: Sex |
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. |
| Q2 | Quiz 2 | |
| L13 |
Modern Pharmaceuticals: Prozac®
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. |
| L14 | Big Pharma | Angell, Marcia. The Truth About the Drug Companies. |
