Editor’s Note: This week brings the second installment in Points’ back-to-school series on teaching the history of alcohol and drugs. Last week, Joseph Gabriel discussed using a History of Science approach to the topic in a seminar for medical students and PhD students in History. This week, historian Michelle McClellan presents a more…well, point-ed approach in a class designed for undergraduates in a residential college setting. Next week, guest blogger Sarah Carnahan of Ohio State University’s School of Social Work and Department of Women’s Studies will talk about “Women and Addiction: A Feminist Perspective.”
As an American historian, I have taught courses on the history of addiction at several institutions over the years. While their subject may seem unusual or controversial to some, these classes followed a structure that is pretty typical for a history curriculum, tracing different substances chronologically through the last few centuries of American history. Now I am jointly appointed in the History Department and the Residential College at the University of Michigan. The Residential College (RC) is a “living-learning community”– an undergraduate liberal arts college within the larger university. Although any University of Michigan students can take classes there, the RC has a self-conscious identity as an interdisciplinary college which fosters a special kind of student creativity and initiative. Last year I taught a course on addiction which I deliberately located in the RC so that I could challenge myself to think about addiction in new ways and, I hoped, use addiction as a subject that would demonstrate to students the value of an interdisciplinary approach. The syllabus follows. Tune in tomorrow to see whether I succeeded in this endeavor.
Hooked: Addiction in American Culture
Drinking, smoking, gambling, drug taking. Although they might seem to be modern inventions, the “bad habits” have a long history in the United States. Ministers, lawyers, politicians, physicians, and plenty of other “experts” have argued that they should be the ones to define what makes the bad habits so bad and what should be done about them. Americans (and others around the world) have variously taxed, regulated, medicalized, punished, and celebrated participation in the bad habits. In this course, we will trace the various ways that addiction has been conceptualized: as a sin or moral weakness; as a lack of will power; as a medical condition; even as a “chronic relapsing brain disorder.” Readings will include works of historical analysis, as well as scientific and social scientific studies. We will also explore representations of addiction and of addicts in popular culture, such as memoirs, films, and television shows. The class format will include discussion of readings as well as some brief lectures for background and context. Assignments will include short written responses to readings; two analytical essays; and a take-home final exam.
BOOKS
David T. Courtwright, Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World
Jack London, John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs
Peter Mancall, Deadly Medicine: Indians & Alcohol in Early America
Carol Groneman, Nymphomania: A History
David Herzberg, Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozac
Nicholas Rasmussen, On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine
Wednesday, January 5: Introduction to Course
Monday, January 10
Clancy W. Martin, “The Drunk’s Club: AA, the Cult That Cures,” Harper’s Magazine, January 2011 (CTools)
Benoit Denizet-Lewis, “An Anti-Addiction Pill?” The New York Times Magazine, June 25, 2006 (CTools)
Courtwright, Forces of Habit, Part I