2024-2025 Humanities Labs
Drugs and the American Experience
Professor Michael Fortner
An injecting kit, heroin paraphernalia in a Jack Daniels tin; Source: Matthew T Rader, https://matthewtrader.com, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Drugs and the “wars” against them have profoundly shaped everyday life in the United States. Drawing on a broad range of primary sources and secondary analyses, this lab will explore the nation’s complicated relationship with illegal narcotics. Students will examine depictions of drug use and trafficking, particularly heroin, cocaine, crack, and methamphetamine, in film, television, newspapers, magazines, and popular music. By reviewing memoirs, oral histories, and government documents, students will also explore how communities, especially Black and Brown urban neighborhoods and White rural areas, have framed and negotiated illegal drug use and trafficking, as well as the state's policing of such activities. Finally, students will debate the ethics of government drug policy, including questions related to bodily autonomy, consent, and public safety.
Research Assistants
Yu-Chi (Yunnie) Cheng ’27
Jasper Datta ’26
Henry Garcia ’27
Gabriel Gardner ’28
Ambika Gupta ’27
Dhriti Jagadish ’27
Erin Kim ’28
Louis Layman ’26
Allison Liu ’27
Maahira Mahajan ’28
Luis Mendoza ’25
Vania Mokonchu ’27
Zach Roerden ’27
Shiraz Smith ’27