Research Overview

Tim Hickman is a cultural historian whose research is in the literary and visual culture of the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is interested particularly in the social and political outcomes of contrasting constructions of 'modernity' between 1870 and 1920. An important element of that culture was the formulation of the concept of (drug) addiction and the medico-legal policies formulated to remedy the condition. This latter interest has led to further publications that examine drug laws and drug culture in more recent American society. All of his work demonstrates a special interest in the construction of race, class and gender difference in the United States.