Happy 4th of July from your friends at Points! We hope you’re celebrating safely with friends and family if you’re in the United States.
Two quick notes before we get back to grilling and sparklers:
First, the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs is looking for a book review editor.
As the editors seek to diversify the journal, book review editors from non-Anglo-North American perspectives are wanted for SHAD. The book review editor will help manage the flow of books and reviews, including identifying titles for review, populating a list of books, securing appropriate reviewers, and overseeing the timely completion of reviews.
Inquiries should be received by September 6, 2019. You can see the full request here.
Second, SHAD co-editor Luc Richert and Erika Dyck, history professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, have released a new article entitled “Psychedelic crossings: American mental health and LSD in the 1970s” in the journal Medical Humanities.
Check out the abstract:
“This article places a spotlight on lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and American mental health in the 1970s, an era in which psychedelic science was far from settled and researchers continued to push the limits of regulation, resist change and attempt to revolutionise the mental health market-place. The following pages reveal some of the connections between mental health, LSD and the wider setting, avoiding both ascension and declension narratives. We offer a renewed approach to a substance, LSD, which bridged the gap between biomedical understandings of ‘health’ and ‘cure’ and the subjective needs of the individual. Garnering much attention, much like today, LSD created a cross-over point that brought together the humanities and arts, social sciences, health policy, medical education, patient experience and the public at large. It also divided opinion. This study draws on archival materials, medical literature and popular culture to understand the dynamics of psychedelic crossings as a means of engendering a fresh approach to cultural and countercultural-based healthcare during the 1970s.”
The entire article is currently available open access, so check it out while you can here.
We’ll be back next week with more exciting work from our authors. In the meantime, have a happy Independence Day!