Putting Winsor McCay's iconic comic strip The Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend into conversation with the federal government's reorganization of consumable goods into toxic, intoxicating and medicinal substances at the turn of the twentieth century, this talk reconsiders the narrative of progressive-era governmental benevolence - in particular the Food and Drug Act of 1906 - to consider where and how affective form and materiality became aligned with the racialized carcerality. Focused on the lines between politics and aesthetics as they were entrenched as law in the early twentieth century, this talk also considers the limits of aesthetic formalism as a methodology that has historically excluded minoritarian critique.

Part of a Winton Chair Cornerstone Event