From narcotics and the international drug trade, antidepressants, addiction treatments, and youth-targeted "club drugs," to PrEP and HIV prevention and flibanserin (the "female viagra") this course examines representations of drug production, use, and exchange in a variety of media forms (fictional, advertorial, and journalistic), and interrogates how these representation intersect with larger questions regarding power, difference, embodiment. Organized thematically, topic will include gendering drugs; race, criminality and moral panic; and homosexuality and perceptions of promiscuity. The class readings with draw upon a range of critical and analytical approaches and conclude with an exploration of the links between the media’s representations of drugs with questions of legality and public policy.