Addiction, Modernity, and the City

Examining the interdependent nature of substance, space, and subjectivity, this book constitutes an interdisciplinary analysis of the intoxication indigenous to what has been termed "our narcotic modernity." The first section - Drug/Culture - demonstrates how the body of the addict and the social body of the city are both inscribed by "controlled" substance. Positing addiction as a "pathology (out) of place" that is specific to the (late-)capitalist urban landscape, the second section - Dope/Sick - conducts a critique of the prevailing pathology paradigm of addiction, proposing in its place a theoretical reconceptualization of drug dependence in the terms of "p/re/in-scription." Remapping the successive stages or phases of our narcotic modernity, the third section - Narco/State - delineates three primary eras of narcotic modernity, including the contemporary city of "safe"/"supervised" consumption. Employing an experimental, "intra-textual" format, the fourth section - Brain/Disease - mimics the sense, state or scape of intoxication accompanying each permutation of narcotic modernity in the interchangeable terms of drug, dream and/or disease. Tracing the parallel evolution of "addiction," the (late-)capitalist cityscape, and the pathological project of modernity, the four parts of this book thus together constitute a users' guide to urban space.

Christopher B.R. Smith is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research concerning substance use has been published in numerous international journals. He has worked in Toronto, Melbourne, Philadelphia, and St. John's, Newfoundland, where he is a faculty member in Memorial University's School of Social Work.

Part One: Drug/Culture: At Home in the Addicted City 1. Drug/Culture: Addiction, Modernity, and the City 2. Bodies of Substance: The (Abject) Body of the Addict and the Social Body of the (Addicted) City 3. Medi(t)ations on/of Controlled, Foreign and/or Illicit Substance Part Two: Dope/Sick: Bootstraps, Brain Diseases and the Depathologization of Drug Dependence 4. Pathology (out) of Place and the Disorder of Drugs 5. Depathologizing Drug Dependence: P/re/in-scription, Consumer Capitalism and Control Societies Part Three: Narco/State: Excavating the Socio-Spatial Permutations of Narcotic Modernity 6. Socio-Spatial Permutations of Narcotic Modernity: The Cities of Phantasmagoria and Shock, Spectacle and Alienation 7. The Contemporary Cityscape as Site of Safe/Supervised Consumption Part Four: Brain/Disease: The Deafening Internal Dialogue of Fractal Interiorities 8. The Intoxication of Narcotic Modernity: Cyborg Subjectivity, Urban Space, and the Media/Technology of Substance 9. Postscript to P/re/in-scription: A Users' Guide to Urban Space