AP/EN 4182 3.00
Contemporary Literature: Writers & Drugs
Explores the connections between drugs and writing, including the intersections between religious, scientific and cultural thought and practice that go into constructing descriptions of drug experiences in our time. All human cultures have involved relationships with psychoactive plant substances (henceforth referred to as 'drugs'). In this course, we will explore the connection between drugs and writing in contemporary culture. We will study a series of basic critical and theoretical concepts and issues that will help us to understand what a 'drug' is, and what it means to write about drugs. The course will briefly review predecessors to contemporary drug literature to provide a basis for thinking about the various manifestations of drugs as addictive and consciousness-expanding, countercultural and socially-accepted, spiritual and marketable, criminal and political. The remainder of the course will look at contemporary writing about drugs, with an emphasis on the politics of visionary states and the integration of formerly taboo substances into a neoliberal economy built around consumer choice. Readings will be supplemented with relevant films, TV shows and online media as needed.
Course credit exclusions: AP/EN 4181 6.00, AS/EN 4331 6.00 (prior to Fall 2009), AS/EN 4330A 6.00 (prior to Fall/Winter 2003-2004)