Frank Herbert's Dune - A guide for further study

Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) will speak on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany's (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation - Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.

In reference to the novel Dune and its depiction of the drug called "spice," the novel hallucinogenic compound DMT has been widely nicknamed "spice" by contemporary users. DMT is a component of psychoactive preparations employed historically for shamanic, spiritual, and medicinal purposes by numerous indigenous populations within the Americas. It is also a controlled substance in most countries, banned as a “drug of abuse." With its popularity on the rise in recent years, in this paper I examine how DMT moved out of the jungles of the Amazon to become increasingly well known in the West. DMT has undergone a variety of processes that have furthered its geographical diffusion, including synthesis and scientific research; its importance to the ayahuasca religions founded in Brazil; and its increasing popularization in contemporary culture through a variety of artistic mediums and movements.