Pill (Object Lessons)

by Robert Bennett

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Author: Robert Bennett

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 1501341944
ISBN 13: 978-1501341946

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

“You are what you eat.” Never is this truer than when we use medications, from beta blockers and aspirin to Viagra and epidurals-and especially psychotropic pills that transform our minds as well as our bodies.

Meditating on how modern medicine increasingly measures out human identity not in T. S. Eliot's proverbial coffee spoons but in 1mg-, 5mg-, or 300mg-doses, Pill traces the uncanny presence of psychiatric pills through science, medicine, autobiography, television, cinema, literature, and popular music. Robert Bennett reveals modern psychopharmacology to be a brave new world in which human identities- thoughts, emotions, personalities, and selves themselves-are increasingly determined by the extraordinary powers of seemingly ordinary pills.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Review

“Bennett is great … in showing how the pill has pervaded popular culture and popular thinking. He coins the genre title of “psychopharmacological thriller,” a mouthful but apt: the film or TV show about not just drugs, but also their making, distribution, and effects. Under this last head, he unleashes a brilliant set piece on Carrie Mathison (played so well by Claire Danes in Homeland.)” - The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Robert Bennett's Pill, another volume in Bloomsbury's fine Object Lessons series … effectively looks at all areas of the history, understanding, and application of pills as maintenance tools (or presumed cures) in psychopharmacology … It's this careful, methodical journey Bennett takes through these medications and their effects as manifested through popular culture that makes Pill an effective, compelling book … Pill succinctly and comprehensively charts the enigmatic relationship humanity has had with wonder drugs of all sorts, particularly here Thorazine through Adderall. [Bennett] suggests, carefully, and with touching immediacy (especially through the final personal chapter), that there's still work to be done as we understand both the blessings and the curses of these drugs.” - PopMatters

“In this wide-ranging and readable book, Robert Bennett shows the many ways that our pills are us. Pill is a cautionary tale about putting our faith in easy cures, and necessary reading for anyone who wants to better understand our complex, anxious, and uncertain times.” ―Rachel Adams, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, and author of Raising Henry: A Memoir of Motherhood, Disability, and Discovery (2013)

“Adept in its understanding of the relationship between pharmacology and culture, this book incisively demonstrates how psychotropic drugs engineer the modern self. Pill doesn't invite us to ask our doctors about Zoloft but rather to ask ourselves how Zoloft defines us as individuals.” ―Lorenzo Servitje, Assistant Professor of Literature and Medicine, Lehigh University, USA, and co-editor of The Walking Med: Zombies and the Medical Image (2016)

About the Author

Robert Bennett is Professor of English at Montana State University, USA. His previous publications include Deconstructing Post-WWII New York City (2003) and, as co-editor, Deconstructing Brad Pitt (Bloomsbury, 2014).

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Pill (Object Lessons)