Interview: Joanna Steinhardt and Tehseen Noorani on the Psychedelic Revival — Epistemic Unruliness 32

Always Already Podcast, a critical theory podcast

In this episode, James welcomes back friend of the podcast Joanna Steinhardt and introduces Tehseen Noorani, co-editors of the recent “The Psychedelic Revival” series published by the Society for Cultural Anthropology. From PTSD and opiate rehabilitation therapy, legalization and decriminalization initiatives, to “tech bro” microdosing and New Age spirituality eco-tourism, it seems that psychedlics are all the rage for everyone these days (including your Boomer parents!). But how did we get here?

Join James, Joanna, and Tehseen as they bring you up to speed on the plant and fungal movements and trajectories making up this psychedelic revival in its various post-1971 iterations following President Nixon’s declaration of the U.S. government’s War on Drugs. But does heralding the “revival” of psychedelia eclipse the traditional contributions of Indigenous American and African pharmacopic knowledges? Or might the revival lead to a revolution of ancestral consciousness capable of rescuing us from the crises of racial capitalism and the Anthropocene? “Turn on, tune in, drop out,” and give a listen! Special thanks to Joanna and Tehseen for providing an extensive episode bibliography!

Requests for texts for us to discuss? Dreams for us to interpret? Advice questions for us to answer? Email us at alwaysalreadypodcast AT gmail DOT com. Subscribe on iTunes. Follow us on Twitter. Like our Facebook page. RSS feed here. Patreon here. Thanks to Bad Infinity for the intro music from their album FutureCommons; always already thanks to B for the outro music. For the mp3 of the episode click here.

https://alwaysalreadypodcast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/psychedelic-revival.mp3

Links:

Digital Media

• “The Psychedelic Revival,” Fieldsights series, Society for Cultural Anthropology
• Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
• Johns Hopkins University Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research
• Website of Dr. Monnica T. Williams (also see Patricia Kubala’s profile of Dr. Williams in “The Psychedelic Revival” series)
• Oakland Hyphae, a self-described collective of “Oakland-based intersectional #mycology enthusiasts. 100% Black Owned”
• Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines
• Psymposia, “adversarial” investigative journalists working on a psychedelics and society beat
• Joanna’s 2016 Epistemic Unruliness interview on mycelial movements
• Joanna’s professional site
• Tehseen’s Durham University bio and Authority Research Network scholarship

Books

• Giffort, Danielle. Acid Revival: The Psychedelic Renaissance and the Quest for Medical Legitimacy. Univ. of MN Press, 2020.
• Labate, Beatriz Caiuby and Clancy Cavnar, eds. Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond. Oxford UP, 2014.
• Langlitz, Nick. Neuropsychedelia: The Revival of Hallucinogen Research since the Decade of the Brain. UC Press, 2012.
• Lattin, Don. The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America. Harper Collins, 2010.
• Letcher, Andy. Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom. Ecco, 2008.
• Richards, William A. Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences. Columbia UP, 2015.
• Saldanha, Arun. Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race. Univ. of MN Press, 2007
• Shipley, Morgan. Psychedelic Mysticism: Transforming Consciousness, Religious Experiences, and Voluntary Peasants in Postwar America. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

Serotonin. Image by Kelsey Brooks, via Society for Cultural Anthropology: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/series/the-psychedelic-revival

via reddit user lysergic_serpent on r/lsd: https://www.reddit.com/r/LSD/comments/bb675s/ayahuasca_is_a_cruel_mistress/