Topic Jonesin': Addicts and Addictions in Popular Culture

Have you ever gone a day without a cup of coffee?  Or without watching
your favorite soap
opera?  What about chocolate?  Miss that Hershey bar late at night?  Are
you depressed if you
don't exercise?  Can you go to the mall without buying something?
Anything?  Though we may,
for the most part, think these are harmless little compulsions, and
indeed they are, they might
also be considered addictions.  Certainly they are not addictions to
alcohol, nicotine, narcotics,
sex, or violence, but they nevertheless inform who we are and how we
behave in the world just
as significantly as these more hazardous dependencies.  In this course we
will be examining how
addiction affects the way that we think of ourselves and how the logic of
addiction shapes our
relationship to our culture.  We will not be interested in making moral
evaluations of particular
addictions (i.e., heroin is bad but coffee is o.k.), nor will the class
be a forum for exposing and
exploring our own cravings (and how we meet them).  Instead, we will look
at the way in which
the concept of addiction has been represented in popular culture.  This
investigation will examine
how family values, patriotism, gender and race distinctions, and personal
identity intersect with
cultural representations of addiction.  Texts may include but are not
limited to: _Trainspotting_,
a selected Harlequin romance novel, Thomas de Quincey's _Confessions of
an English Opium
Eater_, plus analysis of print and video advertisements for alcohol,
cigarettes, and food.