THis course examines the relationship between drugs, politics, and society in cross-cultural perspective; use of mind-altering and habit-forming substances by "traditional societies"; the development of a global trade in sugar, opium, and cocaine with the rise of capitalism; and the use and abuse of alcohol, LSD, and Prozac in the US. It finishes by looking at the war on drugs, shifting attitudes to tobacco, and by evaluating America's drug laws.

This class examines the relationship between a number of mind-altering substances and cultural processes. We look at the relationship between drugs and such phenomena as poverty, religion, technology, inter-generational conflict, colonialism, and global capitalism. We read about the physiological and psychological effects of these substances -- ranging from alcohol to LSD, cocaine and ecstasy -- and ask why different societies prohibit and sanction different drugs. This course also examines the use of mind-altering substances in a number of "traditional" societies, and follows the development of a global trade in such substances as sugar, coffee, tea, nicotine, cocaine, and marijuana concurrent with the evolution of global capitalism.

Born in the UK, Hugh Gusterson took a B.A. in history at Cambridge University in 1980, a Masters degree in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1982, and a PhD in anthropology at Stanford University in 1992.He taught at MIT from 1992-2006 before moving to George Mason University.He has done fieldwork in the United States and Russia, where he has studied the culture of nuclear weapons scientists and antinuclear activists.As one of the founders of the anthropology of science,he writes about militarism.More recently he has written on counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the author of Nuclear Rites and People of the Bomb.