Culture on drugs: Narco-cultural studies of high modernity - Hardcover

Boothroyd, Dave

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719055989 ISBN 13: 9780719055980

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Never has a reconsideration of the place of drugs in our culture been more urgent than it is today. Culture on drugs addresses themes such as the nature of consciousness, language and the body, alienation, selfhood, the image and virtuality and the nature/culture dyad and everyday life. It then explores how these are expressed in the work of key figures such as Freud, Benjamin, Sartre, Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze, arguing that the ideas and concepts by which modernity has attained its measure of self-understanding are themselves, in various ways, the products of encounters with drugs and their effects. In each case the reader is directed to the points at which drugs figure in the formulations of ‘high theory’, and it is revealed how such thinking is never itself a drug-free zone. Consequently, there is no ground on which to distinguish ‘culture’ from ‘drug culture’ in the first place.

Culture on drugs offers a novel approach and introduction to cultural theory for newcomers to the subject, simultaneously presenting an original thesis concerning the articulation of modern thought by drugs and drug culture.

About this title

About the Author:

Dave Boothroyd teaches Cultural Studies at the University of Kent

About this edition

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0719055989
• ISBN 13: 9780719055980
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 232