Charadrius Dubious

An excerpt from Assassin of Youth: A Kaleidoscopic History of Harry Anslinger’s War on Drugs [University of Chicago Press (2016)] as written and spoken in voice over by Alexandra Chasin. “Charadrius Dubius: A Play of Birds, Plants, and People in the Contact Zone,” inverts Book 9 of Homer’s Odyssey, taking the perspective of the Lotus Eaters—and then inverts that perspective too. Disciplines from the Northern Hemisphere—Literature, Botany, Anthropology—go swirly in Equatorial climes. Humans from the Northern Hemisphere eat the local Lotus flower, changing the nature of contact.  The number three takes flight. Everything comes from the sea and returns there after contact.

Charadrius Dubious was co-created with Alexandra Chasin.