High Anxieties: Cultural Studies in Addiction

245 Pages·2002·2.16 MB·English

by  Janet Farrell Brodie

High Anxieties

High Anxieties

Cultural Studies in Addiction
Janet Farrell Brodie

and

Marc RedWeld

EDITORS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2002 by the Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
High anxieties : cultural studies in addiction /
Janet Farrell Brodie and Marc RedWeld, editors.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–520–22750–6 (Cloth : alk. paper).
—ISBN 0–520–22751–4 (Paper : alk. paper)
1. Substance abuse—Social aspects. 2. Drugs and literature.
3. Drugs and motion pictures. 4. Alcoholism in literature.

5. Alcoholism in motion pictures. 6. Virtual reality—Social aspects.

I. Brodie, Janet Farrell. II. RedWeld, Marc, 1958–

HV4998 .H54 2002

394.1'4—dc21 2002002289

Manufactured in the United States of America
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally chlorine-free (TCF).
It meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997)
(Permanence of Paper).8
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments /
ix

Introduction / 1

Marc Redfield and Janet Farrell Brodie
PART I. CONSTRUCTIONS OF ADDICTION
1. Addiction and the Ends of Desire / 19

Stacey Margolis
2. A Terminal Case

William Burroughs and the Logic of Addiction / 38

Timothy Melley
PART II. FIGURES OF THE ORIENT
3. Narrating National Addictions

De Quincey, Opium, and Tea / 63

Cannon Schmitt
4. Victorian Highs

Detection, Drugs, and Empire / 85

Marty Roth
PART III. DEMON DRINK
5. The Rhetoric of Addiction

From Victorian Novels to AA / 97

Robyn R. Warhol
vi CONTENTS
6. Firewater Legacy
Alcohol and Native American Identity
in the Fiction of James Fenimore Cooper / 109
Nicholas O. Warner
PART IV. PLEASURES, REPRESSIONS, RESISTANCES
7. Smoking, Addiction, and the Making of Time / 119
Helen Keane
8. An Intoxicated Screen

Reflections on Film and Drugs / 134

Maurizio Viano
PART V. TRAUMA, MEDIA, CYBERSPACE
9. Welcome to the Pharmacy
Addiction, Transcendence, and Virtual Reality / 161
Ann Weinstone
10. If “Reality Is the Best Metaphor,” It Must Be Virtual / 175
Marguerite R. Waller
Notes /
191
About the Contributors /
225
index /
227
ILLU STRATIONS

1. Train Up a Child in the Way He Should Go; and When He Is Old He Will Not

Depart from It / 75

2. From Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art / 186

vii

AC KNOWLEDGMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge the Center for the Arts and Humanities of
Claremont Graduate University and the Deans of the Claremont Colleges
(Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Pitzer College,
Pomona College, and Scripps College) for their generous support of the
Addiction and Culture conference at which these papers were Wrst pre-
sented. We just as gratefully thank Maureen O’Connor, Sara Patterson, and
Catherine Corder, our skilled and diligent research assistants, for the many
ways they aided us with this volume.
ix