“As políticas culturais das drogas”

De 01/06/2004 a 01/09/2004

Local: University of Virginia

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.