All required and recommended readings are available on eReserve.

Attendance at the university is not required in this unit.

All lectures will be recorded on Echo (previously iLecture) and can be accessed via iLearn ilearn.mq.edu.au. Listen to the recordings and study the associated lecture slides. ESSENTIAL: REGULAR INTERNET ACCESS IS ESSENTIAL TO COMPLETE THIS COURSE! It is YOUR responsibility to procure a reliable and accessible Internet connection throughout the semester. This will be essential for you to complete quizzes, submit assignments and obtain your readings. Lack of Internet access or an unreliable Internet connection will not be a valid excuse for incomplete assessments. The Unit Homepage can be accessed through iLearn. The iLearn page for this unit should be your first source of information about this unit. It is ESSENTIAL that you regularly check the iLearn page, forums and announcements, as these will be the main means of communication between you and your convener.

Lectures

Where: Online (on ilearn)

Convenor and teaching staff Convenor: Dr Guy Threlfo Email: guy.threlfo@mq.edu.au Phone: 0481 511 687 

Guest speakers

* Dr Paul Cohen, Associate Professor Emeritus, Anthropology Dept, Macquarie University

* Dr Greg Downey, Professor, Anthropology Dept, Macquarie University

* Ms Niree Kraushaar, Psychology Department, Macquarie University

* Ms Elizabeth Hagan Lawson, Macquarie University

* Dr Ross MacKenzie, Dept of Environment and Geography, Macquarie University

* Dr James Martin, Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, Macquarie University

* Mr Matt Noffs, CEO, the Noffs Foundation

* Mr Jason Smith, Detective Inspector, Drug Squad, State Crime Command NSW Police Force

* Mr Tony Trimingham, Founder and Director of the Family Drug Support Group

* Dr Alex Wodak, President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation and former Director, Alcohol and Drug Services, St Vincent’s Hospital

* Dr Lisa Wynn, Associate Professor, Anthropology Dept, Macquarie University

Week One

Drugs, Pharmaceuticals and Anthropology (L. Wynn)

This is an introduction to the unit, the topics and lecturers, and the unit requirements.  The introductory lecture begins with a review of the major categories of drugs and their effects and covers a brief history of drug use and drug policy. 

Required Reading

Robson (1999). Forbidden Drugs, second edition, chapter 2: “Consequences of Drug Use"

Additional References:

Davenport-Hines (2004). “Prologue,” The Pursuit of Oblivion.

Davenport-Hines (2004). “Early History.” The Pursuit of Oblivion.

P. Robson (1999). Forbidden Drugs, second edition, chapter 1: “Why Use Drugs?”

Hallucinogens (L Wynn)

The hallucinogens lecture begins with a consideration of the religious and ritual context of the use of hallucinogens among indigenous peoples of North and South America, with particular reference to shamanism. Among the specific issues discussed will be: the characteristics of shamanic trance-states, trance-states and psychotherapy, the social functions of trance-states (e.g. diagnosis of illness). Then follows a discussion of hallucinogens in the West. During the 1940s and 1950s and increasing number of Westerners, including prominent intellectuals such as Aldous Huxley, began experimenting with hallucinogens by using them personally. Later, psychologists and scientists, such as Dr Timothy Leary, began extensive studies of the hallucinogenic experience. The qualities of the drug were so powerful, revealing what seemed an alternative reality, that their use quickly became a feature of the counterculture and alternative society of the 1960s and 1970s. However, connections between hallucinogens and mental illness were also proposed and the dangers of hallucinogenic experiences led to a rapid decline in their popularity. These issues are explored in the film DMT: The Spirit Molecule.

Film: DMT: The Spirit Molecule

Required Reading

Weil, A (1973) ‘Clues from the Amazon’.  In The Nature of Mind, Jonathon Cape, London, pp. 98-115.

Additional references:

Huxley, A (1972) ‘The Doors of Perception’.  In The Doors of Perception and Heaven & Hell.  London: Chatto & Windus, pp. 5-20.)

Siskind (1973).  “Visions and Cures among the Sharanahua.”

P.T. Furst (1972) Flesh of the Gods: the Ritual Use of Hallucinogens, Illinois, Waveland Press (Chapters 1,4 & 5)

M.J. Harner ed. (1973) Hallucinogens and Shamanism, London/NY, Oxford University Press (Chapters 1,3,7,9, & 10).

M.D. de Rios (1972) Visionary Vine: Hallucinogenic Healing in the Peruvian Amazon, Prospect Heights, Waveland Press.

T. Leary (1990) The Politics of Ecstasy, Berkeley, Ronin Publishers.

M.A. Lee (1992) Acid Dreams: the Complete Social History of LSD, NY, Grove Weidenfeld. 

Cannabis (L. Wynn) 

This lecture will explore the history of cannabis in Asia and the West – from its use for religious and medical purposes to its appropriation by literary and artistic circles – and examine the reasons for the shifting image of marijuana in Western countries, including the “gateway hypothesis.”  Finally, debates over decriminalisation and legalisation will be examined.

Required Readings

Himmelstein, J.L. (1983) ‘From Killer Weed to Drop Out Drug’, Contemporary Crises, 7(1): 13-38.

W. Hall & M. Lynskey (2005) ‘Is Cannabis a Gateway drug? Testing Hypotheses About the Relationship Between Cannabis Use and the use of other Illicit Drugs’, Drug and Alcohol Review 24:39-48 

Additional references:

C.A. de Launey (2001) What Drug problem? Cannabis and Heroin in an Alternative Community, PhD thesis, Southern Cross University.

Health and Psychological Consequences of Cannabis Use (1994), National Drug Strategy, Monograph No.25, Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service.

Patterns of Cannabis Use in Australia (1994), National Drug Strategy, Monograph No.27, Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service

D. Solomon ed. (1969) The Marijuana Papers: An Examination of Marijuana in Society, History and Literature, UK, Panther.

Ethnographies of Drug Use (L. Wynn)

In this lecture, Lisa Wynn examines how anthropologists have studied drug use.  The lecture focuses on ethnographies of drugs use and highlights their value, particularly in relation to understanding the meaning of drug use in context. This lecture defines 'ethnography' and outlines ethnographic methods. Then follows an analysis of ethnographies of illicit drug use, such as those by Philippe Bourgois and Waverly Duck. This analysis highlights the value of drug use ethnographies, in particular the understanding of the meaning of drug use in context. The lecture also examines the contribution of ethnographies to an understanding of drug rituals and symbolism and drug subcultures

Required Reading:

Zinberg, N.E. (1984) ‘Historical Perspectives on Controlled Drug Use’.  In Drug, Set and Setting: the Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use. Yale University Press, pp. 1-10. 

Additional References:

Moore (1993). “Beyond Zinberg’s ‘Social Setting’.”

Grund, Kaplan & de Vries (1994). “Rituals of Regulation”

Philippe Bourgois (1995). In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio.

Sudhir Venkatesh (2008).  Gang Leader for a Day.

Burr (1987). “Chasing the Dragon.”

M.H. Agar (1977) ‘Into that whole ritual thing: ritualist drug use among urban American heroin addicts’, in B.M. Du Toit ed. Drugs, Rituals and Altered States of Consciousness, Rotterdam, Balkema, pp. 137-148.

W.M. Harding & N.E. Zinberg (1977) ‘The effectiveness of the sub-culture in developing rituals and social sanctions for controlled drug use’ in Du Toit ed. op. cit. pp. 111-133.

Drug Symbolism (P. Cohen)

This lecture outlines theories of drug use in context, with emphasis on the way rituals and social sanctions operate in drug sub-cultures and the contribution of ethnography to understanding these processes.  There will be some discussion of the symbolic analysis of drugs in relation to ‘drug problems’.  

Required Readings

Manderson (1995).  'Metamorphoses: Clashing Symbols in the Social Construction of Drugs.’ Journal of Drug Issues25(4): 799-816.

Manderson, D. 2005.  Possessed: Drug policy, witchcraft and belief.   Cultural Studies 19(1)

Additional references:

Marshall, M, Ames, G M, and Bennett, L. A (2001) ‘Anthropological perspectives on alcohol and drugs at the turn of the new millenium’. Social Science Medicine 53(2):153-64

Week Two

Drug Pharmacology and Addiction (N. Kraushaar)

Neuropharmacology (N. Kraushaar)

Niree Kraushaar of Macquarie’s Psychology Department will lecture on the pharmacology and neurobiology of drugs.  She will examine how psychoactive drugs exert their effects on the central nervous system and discuss the neurotransmitters (or brain chemicals) including dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine and GABA. She will also explore the difference between substance abuse and substance dependence (or addiction) and examine what properties of the drug determine its harm potential and whether there are any individual differences that make it more likely that a person will become addicted. 

Required Readings

Parrott et al. (2004). Excerpt from “Principles of Drug Action.”

William A. McKim, 2007.  “Dependence, Addiction, and the Self-Administration of Drugs.”  Chapter 5 of Drugs and Behavior: An Introduction to Behavioral Pharmacology, sixth edition.  New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, pp.92-127

Additional references:

Philip Robson, 1999.   “The consequences of drug use,” Chapter 2 in Forbidden Drugs, second edition.  Oxford University Press, pp.19-32

Charles Levinthal, 2010.  “Physical and Psychological Dependence” and “Psychiatric Definitions,” in Drugs, Behavior, and Modern Society, 6th edition (Pearson International).  Boston: Allyn and Bacon, pp.40-44

William A. McKim, 2007.  “Neurophysiology, Neurotransmitters, and the Nervous System” and “Dependence, Addiction, and the Self-Administration of Drugs.”  Chapter 4 of Drugs and Behavior: An Introduction to Behavioral Pharmacology, sixth edition.  New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, pp.57-90.

From Tears to Hope: A Family Perspective on Drugs (Tony Trimingham)

The founder of Family Drug Support will provide a powerful personal account of drug addiction from the perspective of the family members of drug users.  He will also talk about addiction treatment and drug policy.

NO REQUIRED READING!

Week Three

Cocaine (L. Wynn)

This lecture will discuss coca and cocaine in the Silver Triangle (Bolivia, Colombia, Peru) of South America.  The lecture examines the traditional uses of coca and then examines the contemporary situation in which peasant production of coca has become enmeshed in a global economy. 

Required Readings

Leons, M. B. & H Sanabria (1997) ‘Coca and Cocaine in Bolivia: Reality and Policy Illusion’.  In MB Leons & H Sanabria (eds), Coca, Cocaine, and the Bolivian Reality.  New York: State University of New York Press, pp. 2-46.

Wilson, S & M Zambrano (1997) ‘Cocaine, Commodity Chains and Drug Politics: a Transnational Approach’. In Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism. Westport, CT: Praeger, pp. 297-315.

Additional references:

Hellin (2001). “Coca Eradication in the Andes, Lessons from Bolivia.”

P. Gootenberg ed. (1999) Cocaine: Global Histories, London & N.Y., Routledge.

M.B. Leons and H. Sanabria eds (1997) Coca, Cocaine and the Bolivian Reality, N.Y., State University of New York Press.

Recommended viewing:  Cocaine (DVD): "This compelling three-part series from filmmaker Angus Macqueen is a chilling journey from the coca fields, impoverished farmers and cocaine-makers of the Peruvian Andes to drug gangs in the favelas of Rio, and also to the law officials who are powerless to stop this illicit trade. Macqueen spent 18 months filming this extraordinary series in Latin America and it reveals different insight into the much-maligned world of cocaine production. From the dirt-poor valleys of Peru and the shanty towns of Rio, Macqueen talks to people behind the production of cocaine, to explore the effect on the lives of the West's 'war on drugs'. He comes to the contentious and surprising conclusion that legalisation of the drug would solve the biggest of the current problems which are mostly due to the huge demand for it, ironically, from the West” --SBS website.

The War on Drugs (L. Wynn)

Dr Lisa Wynn takes a critical look at the U.S.-led 'War on Drugs' in South America and mainland Southeast Asia, examining first supply-side strategies and the reasons for the failure of these strategies, and then looking at the demand-reduction programs of the U.S. and international agencies that include crop replacement and community-based drug control. 

Required Readings

Farrell, G (1998) ‘A Global Empirical View of Drug Crop Eradication and the United Nation’s Substitution and Alternative Development Strategies’, Journal of Drug Issues, 28(2): 395-436. 

Additional References:

Jelsma (2003). “Drugs in the UN System: the Unwritten History.”

M. Barrett and M.de Palo (1999). 'Community-based intervention to reduce demand for drugs in northern Thailand', Substance Use and Misuse, 13(13):1837-1879.

E.Bertram, M.Blachman, K.Sharpe & P.Andreas (1996). Drug War Politics: The Price of Denial, University of California Press.

R.Gebert and C.Kesmanee 'Issues in highland drug abuse: the genesis and current situation', in D.McCaskill and K.Kemp eds (1997) Development or Domestication? Indigenous Peoples of Southeast Asia, Chiang Mai, Silkworm Press, pp.358-397.

D.Whynes (1991). ‘Illicit drug production and supply-side drugs policy in Asia and South America’, Development and Change, 22,(3):475-494.

Labrousse (1990). ‘Dependence on drugs: unemployment, migration and an alternative path to development in Bolivia.’ International Labour Review, 29(3):33-348.

A Law Enforcement Perspective on Drugs (J. Smith)

Detective Inspector Jason R. Smith will speak about law enforcement and how drugs are policed in NSW with a brief personal account of his history of working on the NSW Drug Squad and a review of law enforcement challenges in policing drugs. 

NO REQUIRED READINGS!

Drugs on the Digital Frontier (J. Martin)

Dr. James Martin

This lecture examines the new generation of online illicit marketplaces, or cyptomarkets, that are increasingly facilitating the sale and distribution of illicit drugs. These websites have proliferated rapidly in recent years, with the most well known, Silk Road, closing under dramatic circumstances in late 2012. Questions we will be addressing in the lecture include: how does the sale and distribution of illicit drugs occur on the digital frontier? Are drugs distributed through cryptomarkets more of less harmful than those that reach consumers through conventional distribution networks?

We'll be watching a pre-recorded video of Dr Martin speaking on this topic. 

Week Four

Drug Law Reform and the Community Approach to Drugs (A Wodak & M Noffs)

Dr. Alex Wodak: 

This lecture reviews international drug policy and the legislative options available for dealing with illicit drugs.  Following a consideration of current legislation regarding illicit drugs and some of their harms, the lecture considers the importance of a harm minimisation approach and what it entails.  Our guest lecturer, Dr Alex Wodak, is one of the most prominent academics in drug research and policy in Australia.

Matt Noffs

Our second guest lecturer, Matt Noffs, is CEO of the Noffs Foundation, which provides community support to socially disadvantaged and disconnected young people to empower them to build meaningful lives (whether they use drugs or not).  He wants to establish “ice consumption rooms,” similar to the heroin injecting rooms that Alex Wodak helped to pioneer in Kings Cross at the turn of the millennium, as a safe place for meth addicted people to use. 

Required Readings

Wodak, A (2000) ‘Developing more effective responses’.  In G Stokes, P Chalk & K Gillen (eds), Drugs and Democracy, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, pp. 183-200.

Wodak, A (2014). 'The abject failure of drug prohibition.' Australia and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. Access at http://idhdp.com/media/362648/anj524424_rev2-wodak.pdf.

Additional References:

Mather, LE, Rauwendaal, ER, Moxham-Hall, VL and Wodak, AD (2013) (Re)introducing medicinal cannabis. Medical Journal of Australia 199(11):759-762

Wodak, A (2014) New Zealand’s regulation of new psychoactive substances. British Medical Journal 348 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g1534 (Published 13 February 2014)

Wodak & McLeod (2004). “The role of harm reduction in controlling HIV...”

D.R. Bewley-Taylor (1999) The United States and International Drug Control, 1909-1997, London & New York.

D. Manderson (1993) From Mr Sin to Mr Big: A History of Australian Drug Laws, Melbourne, Oxford University Press.

Controversial Debates in a Psychoactive Revolution (E. Hagan Lawson)

“Can Your Party Drugs Cure Depression?”  In this lecture, former ANTH106 student Elizabeth will cover a number of the issues that were being debated at a 2015 international debate about drug research and drug policy. Topics covered include the militarisation of police, #blacklivesmatter, the US/Mexico drug war, the prison industrial complex, drugs and music festivals, drugs and psychotherapy, and whether to classify addiction as disease or desire. ‘Psychoactive revolution’ is a term used to describe the drug-saturated world we live in, by author David Courtwright in his book ‘Forces of Habit.’

The Political Economy of Tobacco (R. McKenzie)

This lecture is about the broad health implications of smoking and the role of media in health policy and advocacy.  Dr. MacKenzie will discuss his research on global trade liberalisation and the tobacco industry, primarily in SE Asia, looking at the growth of the globalisation of Western brands and consequences for lower- to middle income countries, consolidation of the tobacco industry, and smuggling.

Required Readings

Lee, S., Ling, P. M. and Glantz, S. A (2012). ‘The vector of the tobacco epidemic: tobacco industry practices in low and middle-income countries’. Cancer Causes Control 23:117-129

Yach D and Bettcher D, 2000.  ‘Globalisation of tobacco industry influence and new global responses.’ Tobacco Control 9: 206-216

Additional references:

Bell, K & H Keane, 2013. “Nicotine control: E-cigarettes, smoking and addiction.” International Journal of Drug Policy

Chapman S, Freeman B., 2008. ‘Markers of the denormalisation of smoking and the tobacco industry.’  Tobacco Control 17:25-31.

Novotny, TE and Carlin, D., 2005. ‘Ethical and legal aspects of global tobacco control.’ Tobacco Control 14:ii26-ii30.

Ballard (2001). “The Politics of Tobacco Control in Australia.”

Mackay (2001). “The Tobacco Epidemic: Some Future Scenarios.”

Goodman, J (1998) ‘Webs of Drug Dependence: Toward a Political History of Tobacco’.  In S Lock, L Reynolds & E Tansey (eds), Ashes to Ashes: the History of Smoking and Health. Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi, pp. 5-29.

K. Blum et al. (1996) ‘Reward deficiency syndrome’, American Scientist, Mar-Apr.

Tyrrell (1999) Tobacco Control in Colonial Australia, ch.1 of Deadly Enemies: Tobacco and its Opponents in Australia,University of New South Wales Press, pp.3–18.

M. Wolfson (2001) The Fight Against Big Tobacco: The Movement, the State, and the Public’s Health, New York, Aldine De Gruyter.

Tobacco and Shamanism (L. Wynn)

Tobacco and Shamanism: Lisa Wynn will look at the pharmacology of the tobacco plant and the biochemistry of nicotine addiction. The biogeography of tobacco varieties in the New World reveals something of its earliest domestication and diffusion throughout the Americas, not as a drug of pleasure but as a sacred medicine, the use of which enable humans to visit and influence the Gods via a hallucinated ‘bridge of smoke’.  Only fifty years after Columbus’ first voyage, tobacco was being smoked in the Portuguese royal court, and fifty years after that it was being traded and smoked around the world.

Required Readings

Wilbert, J (1987) ‘Tobacco and Shamanistic Ecstasy Among the Warao Indians’.  In P Furst (ed), Flesh of the Gods: the Ritual Use of Hallucinogens.  New York: Praeger, pp. 55-83.

Additional References:

J. Wilbert (1987) Tobacco and Shamanism in South America, New Haven, Yale University Press. 

Week Five 

The Political Economy of Opiates (P. Cohen)

Guest lecturer Dr Paul Cohen examines the political economy of opiates in Asia, where he has conducted original ethnographic research.  Professor Cohen outlines the history of opium in Asia with emphasis on the factors contributing to the growth of the Golden Triangle and Golden Crescent regions as the major sources of illicit opium production. The post World War II politics of opium in these regions will be analysed as well as the way in which local opium production and trade is linked to a global market in heroin.

Paul Cohen will also talk about his own fieldwork in the Golden Triangle, discussing the social context of opium production, consumption by ‘hill-tribe’ and peasant growers, and how local anti-opium smoking campaigns in Thailand have resulted in stigmatisation of users, new ways of thinking about addicts, and, ironically, increased heroin use.

FILM: Raw Opium

Available at: http://vimeo.com/channels/mikefuller508033/64118843

“Raw Opium is a feature length documentary (and two-part TV series) about a commodity that has tremendous power – both to ease pain and to destroy lives. The opium poppy is the raw material for heroin, fueling a vast criminal trade larger than the economies of many countries.

Raw Opium is a journey around the world and through time, where conflicting forces do battle over the narcotic sap of the opium poppy. From an opium master in southeast Asia to a UN drug enforcement officer on the border of Afghanistan hunting down the smugglers of central Asia; from a former Indian government Drug Czar and opium farmer to a crusading Vancouver doctor and Portuguese street worker who daily confront the realities of drug addiction.

We see how this flower has played, and continues to play, a pivotal role – not just in the lives of people who grow, manufacture and use it – but also in the increasingly tense sphere of international relations. In the process, our assumptions about addiction and the War on Drugs are challenged.”-- Raw Opium Website <rawopium.com>

Required Readings

Cohen, PT (2013) Symbolic dimensions of the anti-opium campaign in Laos, TAJA 24:177-192

Trocki, C. A. (1999) ‘All the Drowsy Syrups of the World’.  In Opium Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of Asian Opium Trade, 1750-1950. London: Routledge, pp. 13-32. 

Additional references:

Cohen, PT & C Lyttleton (2002) Opium-Reduction Programmes, Discourses of Addiction and Gender in Northwest Laos, Sojourn, 17(1): 1-23.

Brown (1999). “Burma: The Political Economy of Violence.”      

Hoffman (1990). “Historical Shifts in the Perception of Opiates.”          

Labrousse (2005). “Drugs: The Major Obstacle to Afghan reconstruction?”   

Jelsma (2005). “Burma in the Global Drug Market.” (Labrousse and Jelsma articles found In M. Jelsma, T. Kramer & P. Vervest (eds) Trouble in the Triangle: Opium and Conflict in Burma, Silkworm Press, Chiang Mai.)

B. Lintner (1993) The Politics of the Drug Trade in Burma, Indian Ocean Centre for Peace Studies, University of Western Australia.

A.W. McCoy (1972) The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, NY, Harper & Row.

A.W.M Coy (2003) The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Chicago, Lawrence Hill Books.

C.A. Trocki (1999) Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade 1750-1950,London, Routledge.

Yawnghwe, Chao-Tzang (1993) ‘The Political Economy of the Opium Trade: Implications for Shan State’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 23(3): 306-326.

Emergency Contraception (L. Wynn)

Dr Wynn will discuss her research on debates over access to emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) in the United States and Australia.  Though ECPs are not mind-altering drugs (they are just a higher dose of the same hormones found in regular oral contraceptive pills), it is striking how the American discourse surrounding them has tended to focus on many of the same concerns – one might say paranoias – that surround discourses about illegal drug use.  Is it the association between these pills and sex that leads this pharmaceutical product to be imagined in the same way as mood-altering illegal drugs?

Required Readings

Wynn & Trussell (2006). “Images of American Sexuality in Debates Over Nondescription Access to Emergency Contraceptive Pills” Obstetrical Gynecology 108(5):1272-6

Desmond Manderson (2011).  “Possessed: The unconscious law of drugs.”  In S Fraser and D Moore, eds., The Drug Effect: Health, Crime and Society.  Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, pp.225-239.

Additional references:

Wynn & Trussell (2006). “The Social Life of Emergency Contraception in the United States: Disciplining pharmaceutical use, disciplining sexuality and constructing zygotic bodies” Medical Anthropology Quarterly20(3):297-320.

Erectile Dysfunction Drugs (L Wynn)

Lisa Wynn will look at the history of the development of the erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil (Viagra) and how it is consumed cross culturally, with a comparison of the different ways that Viagra is imagined and used in Egypt, China, and the U.S. and the ways it has shaped popular understandings of masculinity and sexuality.

Required Reading

Fishman (2007). “Making Viagra: From Impotence to Erectile Dysfunction.”

Additional references:

Everett Yuehong Zhang (2007).  “The birth of nanke (men’s medicine) in China: The making of the subject of desire.”  American Ethnologist 34(3):491-508.

Everett Yuehong Zhang (2005).  “Rethinking Sexual Repression in Maoist China: Ideology, Structure and the Ownership of the Body.”  Body and Society 11(3):1-25.

Meika Loe (2004).  The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America.  New York: NYU Press.

Jay Baglia (2005).  The Viagra AdVenture: Masculinity, Media, and the Performance of Sexual Health. New York: Peter Lang.

Steroids (G. Downey)

Professor Greg Downey will take us on a tour through steroids and sports, testosterone and 'maleness,' bodybuilders, female bodybuilders, other performance-enhancing drugs (EPO, doping, designer drugs), and arguments for and against their legalisation.

Required Reading

Hoberman, J. (1995). Listening to Steroids. The Wilson Quarterly Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 35-44

The Placebo Effect, Ethics and Drug Trials (L. Wynn).  

Dr. Lisa Wynn will describe how anthropologists, neurologists, and psychologists have studied the placebo effect and talk about the ethics of drug research. Numerous medical studies have illustrated how powerful placebos are. Placebos can cure a headache, ameliorate depression, and even induce a powerful high in drug addicts. Yet placebos are, by their very definition, inert. Therefore, it's not the placebo that's doing all these things. It's the meaning that we attribute to the placebo, and that is a complex blend of psychology and culture acting on physiology.  In the first two hours of lecture, Lisa will explore Moerman and Jonas's theory that the placebo effect is actually a meaning effect and we will test the correlative theory, namely that sensory perception is determined by expectations, with a class experiment involving a blind wine tasting.  Later, she’ll talk about the ethics of placebos in research and therapeutic use and the history and ethics of international drug trials.

Required Reading

Daniel Moerman and Wayne Jonas, 2002.  “Deconstructing the Placebo Effect and Finding the Meaning Response.”  Annals of Internal Medicine 136 (6):471-476.

Additional reference:

Daniel Moerman, 2002.  Meaning, Medicine and the ‘Placebo Effect.’  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.