Chemical Heritage Foundation, Brown Bag Lecture Series
Time: 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Location: Chemical Heritage Foundation, 315 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106
Open to the Public
Free
Small-scale home methamphetamine labs have been an increasingly widespread phenomenon in the United States and in other parts of the world for decades. Unlike most other “illicit” drugs, meth is easily produced from everyday mass consumer products, such as drain cleaner, lithium batteries, camping fuel, and pseudoephedrine-based cold medicine. In this talk Pine focuses on northeastern Missouri, a region that has long had the highest or one of the highest incidences of meth labs in the country according to yearly statistics produced by local and state law enforcement. Rather than considering meth cooking first as an illicit, fringe activity, Pine approaches it as one material cultural practice within a wider repertoire and emplaced in a particular cultural geography. Through an ethnographic and historical analysis of forms of labor and tinkering, gun cultures, topography, big-box and dollar-store consumer landscapes, and industrial geography, this talk suggests that meth cooking takes shape within and shapes the materialities of a place.
Jason Pine is an assistant professor of anthropology and media, society, and arts at Purchase College, SUNY, and a 2015 CHF Fellow. His first book, The Art of Making Do in Naples (Minnesota 2012), is an ethnographic study of a DIY music industry operating in the margins of organized crime networks in Naples. In this talk he will draw on research for his current book project, Meth Labs, Alchemy, and the Matter of Life.
About Brown Bag Lectures
Brown Bag Lectures (BBLs) are a series of weekly informal talks on the history of chemistry or related subjects, including the history and social studies of science, technology, and medicine. Based on original research (sometimes still in progress), these talks are given by local scholars for an audience of CHF staff and fellows and interested members of the public.
For more information, please call 215.873.8289 or e-mail bbl@chemheritage.org.