"Food and Drugs Commodities in Global History". Taught by Paul Gootenberg, State University of New York, Department of History, New York. Spring 2003.
This Theme Seminar, intended primarily for aspiring Ph.D. students from any regional concentration and discipline, explores the history of what anthropologist Sidney Mintz calls the "food-drugs"--sugar, tobacco, coffee, alcohol, betel, chocolate, yerba mate, coca and the like. It examines their creation as commodities and their powerful historical contributions to colonialism, capitalism and modernity. More broadly, it is an introduction to the "new" commodity history and its expanding global horizons.
The core thematic questions posed are: How were these food-drug commodities "constructed" out of things and/or from long-standing embedded social relationships? How did certain local substances become profitable long-distance commodities after the 16th-century world conquests and become accepted and popular objects of mass consumption? Why did others become eventually categorized, during the 19th and 20th centuries, as unworthy, dangerous or illicit goods? How did this commercial "psycho-active revolution" affect, culturally, politically, economically, the making of the modern world? Students will take on interdisciplinary literatures (from Anthropology and Sociology) about commodity-formation and a broad series of recent monographs on particular substances, ending on those now deemed illicit. About half of the literature is based on American-hemisphere substances and their larger global entanglements.
The following seminar books (most worth buying) are available at Stony-Brooks (only):
W. Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise: Social History of Spices, Stimulants & Intoxicants Vintage
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto: Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food (Free Press)
Arnold Bauer, Goods, Power, History: Latin America’s Material Culture (Cambridge)
Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (Penguin)
Piero Camporesi, Bread of Dreams: Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe (Chicago)
Judith Carney, Black Rice: African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Harvard)
Jeremy Pilcher, Que Vivan los Tamales!: Food & the Making of Mexican Identity (New Mexico)
David Courtwright, Forces of Habit: Drugs & the Making of the Modern World (Harvard)
Jordan Goodman, Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence (Routledge)
Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds: Coffee and how it Transformed our World (Basic Bks)
Sophie and Michael Coe, The True History of Chocolate (Thames & Hudson)
Joseph Spillane, Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace (Johns Hopkins)
Paul Gootenberg, ed., Cocaine: Global Histories (Routledge)
John Stevens, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream (Perennial)
PRELIMINARY SEMINAR SCHEDULE
I: COMMODITY PERSPECTIVES
WEEK 1: Jan 22: INTRO: FOOD, DRUGS & HISTORY
WEEK 2: Jan. 29 COMMODITY LENS
READINGS: (Handouts)-Theoretical readings by K Marx, "Fetishism of Commodities"; A. Appadarai/Kopytoff "Social Life of Things"; Douglas/Isherwood "World of Goods"; G. Gereffi, "Commodity Chains," A. Sherratt "Peculiar Substances"
Recommended: J. Goody, Cooking, Cuisine & Class
WEEK 3: Feb. 5 EURO-PARADISE
READING: W. Schivelbusch, Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants
& Intoxicants
Recom: J. Mann, Murder, Magic and Medicine; J. Goodman et.al., Consuming Habits
II: FOODS IN HISTORY
WEEK 4: Feb 12 WORLDS OF FOOD
READING: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto: Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food
Recom: M. Toussaint-Samat, History of Food; G. Rebora, Culture of the Fork
WEEK 5: Feb. 19 POWER GOODS
READING: Arnold Bauer, Goods, Power, History: Latin America’s Material Culture
Recom: F. Braudel, Structures of Everyday Life; S. Coe, Americas First Cuisines
WEEK 6: Feb 26 POWER HUNGER
READING: Sid Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History
Recom: F. Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint; S. Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom
WEEK 7 March 5 PEASANT DREAMS
READING: Piero Camporesi, Bread of Dreams
Recom: C. Ginzberg, Ecstasies; R. Rudgely, Essential Substances; D. Pendall, Pharmokopoeia
COLLECTIVE WRITING EXERCISE DUE
WEEK 8: March 12 SLAVE FOOD
READING: J. Carney, Black Rice: African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas
Recom: A. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange; A. Warman, Historia de un bastardo: maiz y capitalismo
Student Conferences: Paper Topics Due
WEEK 9 (March 19) NO CLASS--WINTER BREAK
WEEK 10: March 26 NATIONAL FOODS
Jeremy Pilcher, Que Vivan los Tamales!: Food & the Making of Mexican Identity
Recom: R. Spang, Invention of the Restaurant; E.Ochoa, Feeding Mexico;
D. Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat
III: ‘DRUGS’
WEEK 11: April 2 DRUGS IN HISTORY
READING: D. Courtwright, Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World
Recom: R. Davenport-Hines, Pursuit of Oblivion; R. Porter ed., Narcotics in History;
A. Weil, The Natural Mind; A. Escohotado, Historia de las drogas
WEEK 12: April 9 GLOBAL KILLER
READING: Jordan Goodman, Tobacco in History: The Cultures of Dependence
Recom: J. Wilbert, Tobacco and Shamanism; R. Klein, Cigarettes are Sublime
WEEK 12: April 16 CAFFEINE TRAIL
READING: Mark Pendergrast, Uncommon Grounds: History of Coffee and how it Transformed our World
Recom: R. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: B. Weinberg/B. Bealer, The World of Caffeine; S. Stein, Vassouras
WEEK 13: April 23 AMERICAN DELICACIES
READING: Sophie and Michael Coe, The True History of Chocolate
Recom: Foster/Cordell, eds. From Chiles to Chocolate;K. Okakura, The Book of Tea
WEEK 14: April 30 BETWEEN COCA & COCAINE
READING: Joseph Spillane, Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace Paul Gootenberg, Cocaine: Global Histories
Recom: M. Kohn, Narcomania: On Heroin or Dope Girls; T.Brook et.al, Opium Regimes
WEEK 15: May 7 PSYCHEDELIC HISTORY
READING: Jay Stevens, Storming Heaven; LSD and the American Dream
Recom: P. Devereaux, The Long Trip; R. Evans-Schultes, Plants of the Gods;
C. Stewart, Peyote Religion
Paper presentations
FINAL FOODS DRUGS PAPER DUE: May 7
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