Editor’s Note: This week, I’ll be offering up some reflections on the recently-concluded conference, “Drugs and Drink in Asia: New Perspectives from History,” which was held at the Shanghai University on June 22 and 23, 2012. The conference itself was organized by Drs. Yong-an Zhang, James H. Mills, and myself (Joe Spillane). The sponsoring organizations included James Mills’ University of Strathclyde, the Wellcome Trust, the David F. Musto Center for Drug Policy Studies at Shanghai University (headed by Yong-an Zhang), and the Alcohol and Drugs History Society. As the current President of the latter organization, I was very pleased to assist with the meeting, and to help welcome attendees. The late Professor Musto would have been very gratified, I think, to have seen this gathering of younger and more senior scholars–together, they provided ample evidence of the maturation of the field of drugs and alcohol history. Our hope in organizing this meeting was to showcase the “new perspectives” promised in the conference title, and to develop conversations across the boundaries of nation, substance, discipline, and method. In this week’s posts, I’ll step back and offer some preliminary thoughts on those conversations.
Before I begin, a brief bit of news for Points readers: this month, I’m stepping down as one of the Managing Editors’ for the Points blog. It has been two years since Trysh Travis and I began preparing to launch this new enterprise, and about eighteen months since our first post. Since then, we have published over 350 more posts, and attracted a modestly sizable readership. Most of this success is courtesy of the indefatigable Trysh Travis, with whom it has been an absolute pleasure to work. I will remain a fully engaged consumer of this blog’s content, and an occasional contributor as well, and look forward to seeing what new surprises Points has in store during the years to come. Now, back to Shanghai…
Conference themes are a curious thing. In theory, they promise a great deal, but all too often end up being nibbled at around the edges over the course of a meeting. Broad enough to sound exciting, themes are generally also capacious enough to include a lot of conversations that happen simultaneously but largely separately. The idea of talking about “Drugs and Drink in Asia: New Perspectives from History” provides us with just this sort theme–just coherent enough to tantalize the participant with the possibilities for engaging academic interactions, just big enough to make one worry that too much was going on.