The Alcohol and Drugs History Society (ADHS) has a lot of exciting news to reveal these days.
First of all, the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs (or SHAD), the official journal of ADHS, has three new co-editors. We’re so pleased to welcome this esteemed and worthy trio!
Lucas Richert (Strathclyde University)
Nancy Campbell (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
David Herzberg (Buffalo – SUNY)
Second, the co-editors of SHAD just signed a five-year agreement with the University of Chicago Press, beginning with the 2019 volume of the journal. ADHS President Dr. Timothy Hickman celebrated the news in an email, stating that “this is a fantastic deal for the society. Of greatest interest to those of you who have published in the journal or are considering it, our reach will grow dramatically. We will be bundled in with other U. of Chicago journals and will be part of their institutional subscription package. That means we will become available in hundreds of libraries and research institutes all over the world where we had no presence before.
“It also means that the entire run of the journal will be easily available electronically and that the submission and review process will be brought up to date. Submission will be centralized, and reviews assigned via an on-line submission system. The new system will push the journal to an entirely new level, which I hope will encourage even more of you to submit. The society will also benefit from a very lucrative financial arrangement with the press.
“We will also be able to bring our membership and subscription practices up to date. The U. of Chicago Press will manage subscriptions, so please watch out for a renewal e-mail from them in the future.”
But that’s not all! Things just seem to be getting more exciting for ADHS: our 2019 conference will take us to Shanghai!
“Changing Minds: Societies, States, the Sciences and Psychoactive Substances in History” will meet at Shanghai University from June 13-16, 2019.
Here’s more info from the official call for papers:
The 2019 Alcohol and Drugs in History Society conference takes its cue from recent shifts in attitudes towards, and understandings of, intoxicants and psychoactive substances to explore the drivers of change throughout history in ideas about, and actions on, such materials.
Over the last two decades or so physiological models of drug and alcohol use have claimed to provide definitive accounts of the actions of these substances on human bodies, and how they function to literally change our minds. In much the same period ideas about certain substances, from alcohol to cannabis, have begun to fundamentally shift and with this has come political change as many consumers, scientists, doctors and policy-makers change their minds, even as others refuse to do so. The conference stops to ask ‘haven’t we seen this all before’?
After all, experts offering definitive accounts of such substances, vacillating bureaucrats and politicians, unyielding moralists and fickle consumers are all among the figures familiar to historians from other periods and a range of places. The conference brings together those working in the field to examine the latest research into why ideas, attitudes and approaches towards intoxication and psychoactive substances have changed in historical contexts, and why they have not. It will also establish how far these historical understandings can provide a clearer sense of just what lies behind practices, perceptions and policies today.
Where and When For the first time the ADHS will host its conference in Asia, at Shanghai University in China, one hundred and ten years after the Opium Commission in the city that did so much to shape future control regimes. The event will also mark the centenary of the Treaty of Versailles which saw the establishment of the first permanent international mechanisms for monitoring and making policy on psychoactive and intoxicating substances at the new League of Nations. The David F. Musto Center for Drugs and National Security Studies at Shanghai University, in partnership with the ADHS and the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare (CSHHH) Glasgow at the University of Strathclyde, looks forward to welcoming all those conducting research on any aspects of the consumption or control of alcohol or drugs in the past, anywhere in the world.
The event will take place between 13 and 16 June 2019.
Call for Papers For individual papers please submit a one-page cv, a title and an abstract of no more than 200 words.
For panel proposals please provide a panel title and a list of four participants, together with a one-page cv, a title and an abstract of no more than 200 words for each participant.
The deadline for proposals is Monday, 5 November 2018.
These should be submitted to caroline.marley@strath.ac.uk