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Course Info for SOCL - 254 - 90, Summer 2025
Class number: 1058 Title: Hulu’s Dopesick:TV vs. Reality Department: Sociology
Career: Undergraduate Component: Lecture Session: Second Quarter
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 15 Current enrollment: 3 Available seats: 12
Start date: Monday, June 23, 2025 End date: Friday, July 25, 2025 Mode of Instruction: Remote
Schedule: MW: 2:00PM-5:15PM, N/A Instructor(s): Andersson, Tanetta
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Soc Sciences & Identity Power Equity Req
Course Description:
"Dopesick," an eight-episode 2021 TV miniseries based on a bestselling book, depicts the Opioid overdose crisis over the past twenty-five years. Through low- and mid-stakes written work (i.e., freewriting techniques) with analytical essay revision, students will observe and then analyze central scenes/episodes by applying sociological, historical, anthropological, public health scientific literature, plus engage with hands-on digital research experience using The Opioid Industry Documents Archive. While Dopesick presents a multifaceted narrative, it tells a limiting good/bad-guy cultural story. Whereas a sociological ‘quality of mind’ (Mills, 1959) asks, if systems rather than individuals are failing us, then we must look beyond bad actors to analyze the rules and logics of interlocking social/economic decline, medicalization, health care landscapes, criminalization, and racialized, sexualized, and class-based conceptions on pain/suffering.