logo for Points, which features a needle in place of the T

short & insightful writing about a long and complex history

Joint Blog of the Alcohol & Drugs History Society and the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy

ttravis | January 20, 2011

Points (n.)

1. marks of punctuation. 2. something that has position but not extension, as the intersection of two lines. 3. salient features of a story, epigram, joke, etc.:  he hit the high points. 4. (slang; U.S.) needles for intravenous drug use.

What’s the Point?

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The “point” of an academic group blog has been the subject of a fair amount of discussion, and my colleague and co-Managing Editor Trysh Travis has already had her say about that here.

But what is it about the history of alcohol and drugs that seems worthy of the time and attention that we’re devoting to this particular academic blog?  There’s more to the answer than could fit in a single post, but why not start by considering the “points” featured in the header of the blog?  The image shows a beautifully detailed nineteenth-century syringe case, with marvelous decorative details.  How many doors are opened up when we follow the history of the syringe?  Here are a couple:

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Points: Of Origin

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What is the point of an academic group blog, my co-managing editor Joe Spillane wants to know? It’s a necessary and pleasurable adjunct to an academic print culture that, while maybe not quite dead, can hardly be termed in the pink of health.  The book I published last year on addiction and recovery appeared in a respectable hardcover edition, with copies priced “low” at  $35 each.  As I write, it’s hovering just above the 1-millionth most popular mark on amazon.com.

When the book was done, like a good academic I took some material that didn’t make the final cut and re-purposed it into an article.  After four months on the editor’s desk at a peer-reviewed journal that shall remain nameless, I got a revise-and-resubmit request.  I made the requested changes and returned the piece; after another four months, it was rejected by a different round of editors whose complaints were completely different from those of the first readers.  That was my writing year.

Sure, the book got me tenure, but you don’t have to be Peggy Lee to wonder, “is that all there is to a circus?”

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