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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Consider The Pill: Pharmacentric Readings of Post-WWII American Literature Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4q62090h Author Farinholt, Rhett Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO Consider The Pill: Pharmacentric Readings of Post-WWII American Literature A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Rhett William Farinholt Committee in charge: Professor Michael Davidson, Co-Chair Professor Meg Wesling, Co-Chair Professor Brian Goldfarb Professor Lisa Lampert-Weissig Professor Wm. Arctander O’Brien 2019 Copyright Rhett William Farinholt, 2019 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Rhett William Farinholt is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ Co-chair _____________________________________________________________ Co-chair University of California San Diego 2019 iii DEDICATION To my parents, Neal and Melanie, without whose love and inspiration, I would not have been in a position to pursue this project. To my wife, Gina, without whose support and motivation, I never would have completed this project. And to my children, Beau and Tinsley, without whom this project would have been done a lot sooner. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page .......................................................................................................................... iii Dedication .................................................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ v List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... vii Vita .......................................................................................................................................... viii Abstract of the Dissertation ........................................................................................................ ix Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1 - The Benzedrine Beat: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and the Literature of Amphetamines .......................................................................................................................... 30 Chapter 2 - “Tamed by Miltown”: Tranquilizing Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton ....................... 67 Chapter 3 - “Nothing but a Pack of Neurons”: Antidepressants and the 1990s Depression Memoir .................................................................................................................................... 103 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 148 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................ 159 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: “Mellaril Ad.” Source: procon.org, 1965 .................................................................... 9 Figure 1.2: “Thorazine Ad.” Source: procon.org, 1956 .............................................................. 12 Figure 1.3: “Benzedrine Armed Forces Ad.” Source: JAMA, 1943 ............................................ 24 Figure 1.4: “Miltown Ad.” Source: JAMA, 1967 ......................................................................... 26 Figure 1.5: “Prozac Ad.” Source: American Journal of Psychiatry, 1995................................... 28 Figure 2.1: “Benzedrine Productivity Ad.” Source: College of Physicians Philadelphia, 1944 ... 36 Figure 2.2: “For Children and Adults.” Source: twitter, @peter_watts, 2012, and “Benzedrine Menopause Ad.” Source: Psychosomatic Medicine, 1946 ........................................................ 37 Figure 3.1: “Yes, We Have Miltown.” Source: New England Journal of Medicine, 2009 ........... 71 Figure 3.2: “Belongs in Every Practice.” Source: procon.org, 1964 .......................................... 75 Figure 3.3: “Meprospan Ad.” Source: JAMA, 1960 ................................................................... 78 Figure 4.1: “Newsweek Cover.” Source: Newsweek, 1990 ..................................................... 114 Figure 4.2: “Prozac Sculpture.” Source: roadsideamerica.com, 2009 ..................................... 117 Figure 4.3: “Prozac Productive Days.” Source: American Journal of Psychiatry, 1998 ........... 121 Figure 5.1: “Your New Brain.” Source: Popular Science, 2019 ............................................... 149 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge and thank the members of my committee, Professors Brian Goldfarb, Lisa Lampert-Weissig, and Billy O’Brien for their perceptive commentary and encouraging council. I would especially like to thank my committee chairs, Professors Michael Davidson and Meg Wesling, for their patience and steady-handed guidance. I would like to thank Dr. Eiman Azim at the Salk Institute for generously sharing his time and perspective. Thanks are also due to Professor Nicole Tonkovich whose practicum proved invaluable to my writing process. Lastly, I would like to thank Professor Sara Johnson for her excellent feedback on my first chapter and her generally inspirational impact on my research and teaching. vii VITA 2002 Bachelor of Arts, University of California, Los Angeles 2013 Master of Arts, California State University, Sacramento 2019 Doctor of Philosophy, University of California San Diego viii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Consider the Pill: Pharmacentric Readings of Post-WWII American Literature by Rhett William Farinholt Doctor of Philosophy in Literature University of California San Diego, 2019 Professor Michael Davidson, Co-Chair Professor Meg Wesling, Co-Chair This dissertation explores the impact of psychopharmacological discourses on Post- WWII American literature. I argue for a “pharmacentric” reading practice that foregrounds the role of pharmaceuticals in both the production and consumption of American literature across the period, tracing the rise of a new ontological construction in the cultural imagination I call the “neurochemical self.” This view of the self as an expression of chemical interactions in the brain emerges from the period’s scientific, medical, and advertising industries to become the dominant understanding of American selfhood by century’s end, and remains under-examined in existing literary scholarship. In making the case for the rise and importance of the ix neurochemical self, I identify and examine the development of literary language and techniques indebted to popular and scientific discourses around pharmaceuticals, a phenomenon I call “pharmaceutical literacy.” In organizing this analysis of the neurochemical self and pharmaceutical literacy, I turn to three distinct eras in post-WWII American literature, identifying three signal pharmaceuticals within and the literary works they engaged with. I argue for the importance of amphetamines, specifically Benzedrine, to the work of the Beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in the first decade after the war. Next, I look at America’s “Age of Anxiety,” identifying tranquilizers as the dominant psychopharmaceuticals from the late 1950s through the 1980s, reading the confessional poetry of Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton through the resulting pharmacentric perspective. Lastly, I argue for the importance of neurochemical selfhood and pharmaceutical literacy to the discourses provoked by the advent and run-away success of SSRI antidepressants, specifically within the work of 1990s depression memoirs by Elizabeth Wurtzel and Meri Nana-Ama Danquah. Finally, I argue for an extension of literary studies that accounts for these psychopharmaceutical developments and offers valuable perspective on the tensions between scientific and humanistic understandings of identity. x Introduction Looking for a fun parlor game or third date conversation? Try to identify which popular drugs exemplified a given era and why. The 1980s in the U.S.? Easy. Cocaine: a brash, cocksure stimulant, full of artificial confidence, and ostentatiously expensive. The 1920s? While bromides had their adherents, my vote would be for alcohol: celebratory and convivial, but promising a hangover to come. Victorian England? Probably Laudanum: a soporific opiate, deadening dangerous feelings, particularly in women. With a bit of stretching, perhaps the Medieval period could be exemplified by medicinal leeches: bloody, violent, informed largely by tradition and mythology, not scientific research. Though it is too early to reasonably speculate, it is certainly possible that the next period of U.S. culture could come to reflect the attributes of the attention deficit drugs widely prescribed