Health and Society: Drugs & Addiction Lit

See Schedule of Courses for specific titles.

Colocated with ENGL 1260 B; Total combined enrollment = 40 Open to degree and PACE students Special Topics courses cannot carry CC designations.

This course is entitled “Using Addict”—a name that, like its subject, can be read in different ways. It begins with the recognition that literary and cinematic representations of drugs, drug users, dependency, and recovery have a profound impact on health, politics, and social ecology. Taking the contemporary revision of clinical terms for “addiction” as a critical symptom, we will explore the emergence, evolution, and use of the metaphors and images of "the Addict" and "drugs" in literature, film, medicine, and the wider culture from the Romantic Period to the present. We will examine and the manner in which “the Addict”—whether understood as a character, a narrative vehicle, or as a state of being—has been used in western societies to tell stories about identity, health, power, consumption, modernization, and the body. Films will include: The Lost Weekend, The Man with The Golden Arm, Orpheus, New Jack City, Drugstore Cowboy, Trainspotting, and A Scanner Darkly. Required texts: Anonymous, Go Ask Alice. Simon Pulse, 2006. ISBN: 978-1416914631 Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch. Grove Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-0802122070 Cocteau, Jean. Opium: The Diary of His Cure. Peter Owen, 2013. ISBN: 978-0720615111 De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Ed. Barry Milligan, Penguin Books, 2003 ISBN: 978-0140439014 Kavan, Anna. Ice. Penguin Classics. 2017 ISBN: 978-0143131991

Attendance and participation Regular reading and viewing Writing assignments

Attendance and participation Reading quizzes Misc. writing assignments Mid-term exam and essay Final exam and project [three options: essay, video essay, podcast]