PROLOGUE: THE AMERICAN PIPE DREAM

Associate Professor of Theatre Max Shulman will join us to talk about his new book, The American Pipe Dream: Performance of Drug Addiction, 1890-1940 from Iowa University Press. It is the first work to trace the history of addiction and drug use on the US stage and screen, examining the ways in which performance created the way we imagine addiction. From blood-and-thunder melodramas of the 1900s, forgotten Broadway hits of the 1920, the jazz cabarets of the 1930, to Eugene O’Neill’s canonical Long Day’s Journey, this work demonstrates how performance has influenced the policies, treatment, and awareness of addiction in the US imagination. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.
 
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. For more information contact Kevin Landis at klandis@uccs.edu.