HIST 413 - History of Modern Drugs and Medicines

4 credit(s)
This interdisciplinary and interregional course explores drugs and medicines as commodities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first part of the course traces the commodity chain of well-known substances like opium, quinine, and cocaine – from production to distribution to consumption – in order to examine how drugs and medicines have influenced geopolitics, shaped social relations, and influenced peoples’ habits across the globe. The second part of the course involves applying concepts and ideas learned from part one to specific case studies around the world. The overall goal is to have students think and write critically about the role of drugs and medicines in relation to the larger questions concerning capitalism, colonialism, and modernity. How do different societies determine the difference between a drug versus a medicine?
Core Requirement(s): Counts toward core requirements: Analyzing and Interpreting Texts and International Perspectives.