Anthropology 271: "The
Cultural Politics of Drugs"
University of Virginia, Summer 2004, 2nd Session
Instructor: Matthew Meyer
Office Hours: By appointment
Email: mdmeyer@virginia.edu
Mailbox: Brooks Hall basement
Course meets: MTWRF 10:30-12:45
in PHS 210
This course examines drug use in
various historical and cultural contexts and introduces anthropological
conceptions of culture, cultural politics, race, and class. Readings and
films focus on illegal and legal drugs in a variety of situations: the
making of modern Europe, American inner-city economics and South American
culture and politics, the United States' "war on drugs," drug
education and propaganda, the American youth rebellion of the 1960s, the
medical marijuana movement, and the struggle of Native Americans to secure
legal protection for the religious use of peyote. We will ask what drug
controversies can teach us about the politics of culture, how patterns
of consumption are linked to social categories, and how drug use is culturally
constructed. Course requirements center on reading assignments and include
short writing assignments: film response papers, a short final paper,
and an analysis of drug propaganda.
Readings: The following books are
available for this course in the UVA bookstore and on 2-hour reserve at
Clemons Library:
1. Wolfgang Schivelbusch. 1992. Tastes of paradise: a social history of
spices, stimulants, and intoxicants. New York: Pantheon Books.
2. Tom Wolfe. 1969. The electric kool-aid acid test. New York: Farrar
Straus and Giroux.
3. Philippe Bourgois. 2003 [1995]. In search of respect: selling crack
in El Barrio, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schedule of Classes and Readings:
R 7/15 Introduction
Drugs in the Global Political Economy:
Commodities and Consumables
Drugs and Modernity
F 7/16 Goodman, Lovejoy, and Sherratt 1995
Courtwright 2001; Film: Drug wars, pt. 1
M 7/19 Schivelbusch 1992 pp. 3-84,
147-166; Gusfield 1991;
Film: Coffee, a sackful of power
Coca and Cocaine: From the Andes
to the Barrio
T 7/20 Allen 1988; Bourgois 1995; Film: Coca Mama
W 7/21 Bourgois 1989; Film: Drug
wars, pt. 2
Drugs, Race, and Class
R 7/22 Lusane and Desmond 1991; Bonnie and Whitebread 1974
Film: Drug propaganda and satire compilation
F 7/23 Roseberry 1996; Pinckney
2001
Drugs, Medicalization, and Social
Control
M 7/26 Bakalar and Grinspoon. 1984; Szasz 2003; Hertzberg 2000
ONDCP ad analysis due
Medical Marijuana
T 7/27 Mack and Joy 2001; Bock, Alan W. 2000;
Film: Busted: America's war on Marijuana
W 7/28 Musto 2002, pp. 484-497,
skim 498-527, pp. 528-533
U.S. Government Printing Office 2001; Frolik 1999
Film: Marihuana: Assassin of youth
The Psychedelic Sixties
R 7/29 Grinspoon and Bakalar 1979
F 7/30 Becker 1967; Zinberg 1984;
Film: LSD: Insight or insanity?
M 8/2 Stone 2004; Wolfe 1968, pp.
1-65, 124-154
T 8/3 Wolfe 1968 pp. 167-181, 210-226, 249-285, 371-411
W 8/4 La Barre 1975; Leary 1990
Drugs and Religion
The Politics of the Native American Peyote Churches
R 8/5 Long 2000; Handler 1988
F 8/6 American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendment 1994
Snake and Inouye. 1993
M 8/9 Conclusion; Short paper due
W 8/11 EXAMS
R 8/12 EXAMS
Grading breakdown:
Attendance and participation: 25%
Short paper: 25%
Four movie responses: 20%
ONDCP ad analysis: 10%
Quizzes: 20%
Readings and films list
Allen, Catherine J. 1988. The hold
life has: coca and cultural identity in an Andean community. Washington:
Smithsonian Institution Press. Chapter 4, "Coca knows," pp.
125-136.
American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendment
Bakalar, James B., and Lester Grinspoon. 1984. Drug control in a free
society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 1, "Questions
of risk and liberty," pp. 1-34.
Becker, Howard S. 1967. History, culture, and subjective experience: An
exploration of the social bases of drug-induced experience. Journal of
Health and Social Behavior 8(3):163-176.
Bock, Alan W. 2000. Waiting to inhale: the politics of medical marijuana.
Santa Ana, Calif.: Seven Locks Press.
Bonnie, Richard J., and Charles H. Whitebread. 1974. The marihuana conviction:
a history of marihuana prohibition in the United States. Charlottesville,
VA: University Press of Virginia. Chapter 2, "The Alien Weed,"
pp. 33-52.
Bourgois, Philippe I. 2003 [1995]. In search of respect: selling crack
in El Barrio, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 3,
"Crackhouse management: Addiction, discipline, and dignity,"
pp. 77-113.
--------- 1989. Crack in Spanish Harlem: Culture and economy in the inner
city. Anthropology Today 5(4):6-11.
Courtwright, David T. 2001. Forces of habit: drugs and the making of the
modern world. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Chapter 1, "The
big three: Alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine," pp. 9-30.
Emerson, John, et al. 2000. Drug propaganda and satire compilation. Burbank,
Calif.: Hollywood's Attic Inc.
Esper, Dwain, et al. 2000. Marihuana : Assassin of youth; Reefer madness
(Doped youth). Seattle, WA: Something Weird Video.
Frolik, Joe. 1999. Medical marijuana boosters find reversing history isn't
easy; federal government won't change stand on medical use no matter what
the voters say in California. Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 11th.
Goodman, Jordan, Paul E. Lovejoy, and Andrew Sherratt. 1995. Consuming
habits: Drugs in history and anthropology. London: Routledge. Chapter
1, "Alcohol and its alternatives: Symbol and substance in pre-industrial
cultures," pp. 11-46.
Grinspoon, Lester, and James B. Bakalar. 1979. Psychedelic drugs reconsidered.
New York: Basic Books. Chapter 3, "Psychedelic drugs in the twentieth
century," pp. 56-88.
Gusfield, Joseph. 1991. "Passage to play: rituals of drinking time
in American society." In Mary Douglas, ed., Constructive drinking:
perspectives on drink from anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 73-90.
Handler, Richard. 1988. Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Chapter 3, "'Having a Culture':
The Preservation of Quebec's Patrimoine." Pp. 140-158.
Healey, James, Ian Hendrie, and Derrick Scocchera. 2003. "LSD: Insight
or insanity?" The educational archives. Fantoma Films.
Hertzberg, Hendrik. 2000. Gore's greatest bong hits. The New Yorker. February
7:31.
La Barre, Weston. 1975. The peyote cult. [Hamden, Conn.]: Archon Books.
"Preface to the 1969 edition," pp. xi-xix.
Leary, Timothy. 1990 [1968]. The politics of ecstasy. Berkeley, CA: Ronin
Publishing. Chapter 7, "She comes in colors," pp. 118-159.
Long, Carolyn Nestor. 2000. Religious freedom and Indian rights: the case
of Oregon v. Smith. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Chapter 1, "The
Peyote Road," pp. 4-21.
Lusane, Clarence, and Dennis Desmond. 1991. Pipe dream blues: racism and
the war on drugs. Boston, MA: South End Press. Chapter 2, "Racism
and the drug crisis," pp. 25-53.
Mack, Alison, and Janet E. Joy. 2001. Marijuana as medicine? The science
beyond the controversy. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Chapter
12, "Legal issues," pp. 156-172. (available online as an e-book
at: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309065313/html)
Mannes, Elena, Will Lyman, and PBS Video. 1997. Busted: America's war
on Marijuana. [Alexandria, VA]: Distributed by PBS Video.
Musto, David F. 2002. Drugs in America: a documentary history. New York:
New York University Press. Chapter 73, "The legalization of marijuana:
hearings." Pp. 484-533.
Pinckney, Darryl. 2001. Busted in New York: A nighttime walk leads to
trouble. The New Yorker, February 5th:34-XX.
Roseberry, William. 1996. The rise of yuppie coffees and the reimagination
of class in the United States. American Anthropologist 98(4):762-775.
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. 1992. Tastes of paradise: a social history of
spices, stimulants, and intoxicants. New York: Pantheon Books. Pp. 3-84,
147-166.
Snake and Inouye. 1993. In memory of Reuben A. Snake, Jr. Congressional
Record 139(93).
Stone, Robert. 2004. The prince of possibility: When Ken Kesey seemed
capable of making anything happen. The New Yorker, June 14th and 21st,
pp. 70-72, 74, 77-78, 81-82, 85-86, 89.
Sullivan, Michael, et al. 2000. Frontline: Drug wars. WGBH Educational
Foundation. Alexandria, VA: PBS Video.
Szasz, Thomas Stephen. 2003. Ceremonial chemistry: the ritual persecution
of drugs, addicts, and pushers. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Chapter
1, "The discovery of drug addiction," pp. 3-18.
Thielen, Jan. 2001. Coca Mama: the war on drugs. New York: Filmakers Library.
U.S. Government Printing Office. 2001. "Medical marijuana,"
federal drug law and the Constitution's supremacy clause. In House Committee
on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. March
27th.
Wolfe, Tom. 1969. The electric kool-aid acid test. New York: Farrar Straus
and Giroux. Pp. [1-65, 124-154] [167-181, 210-226, 249-285, 371-411]
Zinberg, Norman Earl. 1984. Drug, set, and setting: the basis for controlled
intoxicant use. New Haven: Yale University Press. Chapter 1, "Historical
perspectives," pp. 1-18.