The Canadian Society for the History of Medicine and the Canadian Association for the History of Nursing are seeking papers and panel proposals that “reckon with the segmentation of nursing history/medical history/health history and seek to broaden our reach and re-imagine the direction of our fields” for their 2023 joint conference. They welcome proposals from a diversity of geographical areas and time frames.
Conferences
Call for Papers: CERMES3 workshop, 2023
The Centre de Recherche Médecine, Sciences, Santé, Santé Mentale, Société (CERMES3) has announced a call for papers on the subject of: “Health Sciences and the Social: Health and Social Mobilization, 1950-2020s”, which will contribute to a workshop hosted in Paris on May 19th, 2023.
Early Career Alcohol Research Symposium 2022
The Sheffield Alcohol Research Group will be hosting their annual “Early Career Alcohol Research Symposium” on Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th September 2022, which is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Addiction. Find out more here.
The War on Drugs: From Book to Website
Editor’s Note: Today’s guest post is from Dr. David Farber, Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of Modern U.S. History at the University of Kansas. He is the editor of the recently published, War on Drugs: A History (NYU Press, 2021).
Over the last 36-and-a-half years I have done what research-oriented history professors of my generation were supposed to do: I wrote books and published articles. What I did not do—until now—was produce a website. Defying the ageist canard about old dogs and new tricks—albeit admittedly in collaboration with my much younger colleagues Clark Terrill and Marjorie Galelli—I’m happy to report that the War on Drugs Project website is now live.
“Global Histories of Drugs: Why and What’s Next?”—Reflections on the Cannabis: Global Histories Workshop
Editor’s Notes: Today’s post by Eron Ackerman reflects on his participation in the “Global Drug Histories: Why and What’s Next?” workshop held jointly this past October at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy and the British Library. Dr. Ackerman recently completed his dissertation, “Cannabis and Colonialism in the British Caribbean, 1838–1938,” at Stony Brook University and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Albion College.
When Lucas Richert invited me to attend the joint US-UK meeting, “Global Histories of Drugs: Why and What’s Next?” at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy on October 6, I jumped at the chance—even if it meant having to cancel some mid-week classes. The meeting was inspired by the release of the new collection of essays Cannabis: Global Histories (MIT Press, 2021), which intersects so closely with my own work about the history of Caribbean ganja that I couldn’t miss it. The organizers used Zoom to link our group in Madison to a larger group of book contributors and guest panelists “across the pond” at the British Library.
Watch 2021 “Kreminar” Videos—History of Opiates & Opioids
In May and June of 2021, the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy and the Alcohol and Drugs History Society hosted and helped organize the second annual Edward Kremers Seminar in the History of Pharmacy & Drugs. The Summer 2021 “Kreminar” explored the theme of Opiates & Opioids and featured six virtual seminars, presentations, and discussions by scholars and practitioners researching and writing about the history and the contemporary status of opiates, opioids, and addiction. The six presentations were:
- Dr. Benjamin Breen: “Three Ways of Looking at Opium: Flower, Latex, Pharmaceutical.”
- Dr. Diana S. Kim: “Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition Across Southeast Asia.”
- Dr. Daniel Skinner in conversation with Kerri Mongenel: “The Humanity of Addiction: What We Can Learn from Families, Educators, and Practitioners”
- Dr. Nancy Campbell and Dr. David Herzberg: “Unexpected Histories of Opioids and Overdose.”
- Dr. James Bradford: “Poppy Politics: Drugs in Afghanistan, Past and Present.”
- Maia Szalavitz: “Undoing Drugs: Harm Reduction, Opioids and the Future of Addiction.”
Each 2021 Kreminar event drew between 50 and 70 attendees for a total attendance of 327 people across the six webinars. The hosts and sponsors of the Summer 2021 Kreminar were: the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, the Alcohol and Drugs History Society, the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Pharmacy, and the University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences Cooperative for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Videos of each presentation are embedded below or available to watch on AIHP’s YouTube channel.
Watch “A Century of American Drug Use” Virtual AHA Panel
Editor’s Note: Today’s post comes from contributing editor Bob Beach. Beach is a PhD candidate in history at the University of Albany, SUNY.
The annual gathering of historians for the American Historical Association’s yearly meeting is set to resume in January 2022 in New Orleans, barring a major resurgence of Covid due to the delta variant. The pandemic caused the cancellation of the 2021 meeting slated for Seattle, Washington, but the AHA selected several panels to present at its virtual AHA colloquium, which started early this year and will wrap up this month. Panels not selected for the main colloquium were still encouraged to hold sessions, and the AHA generously offered space on its YouTube channel for recordings of Zoom meetings to be uploaded.
I was part of such a virtual AHA panel entitled “A Century of Drug Use: Psychoactive Drugs Among Native Americans, Hippies, and the Working Poor” that met on the most appropriate day possible for such a thing—April 20, 2021. We gathered together on Zoom with a group of 50 friends for a very productive 90-minute panel.
Event Alert—A War on Research: Drug Policy and 50 Year of Lost Knowledge
Editor’s Note: This event alert is part of Points’s commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the War on Drugs.
Mark you calendars for this coming Thursday, June 24. The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) is hosting a panel titled, “A War on Research: Drug Policy and 50 Years of Lost Knowledge.” Sponsored by the DPA’s Department of Research and Academic Engagement, the panel discussion will explore the research and knowledge that has been delayed or lost due to the drug war.
Title: A War on Research: Drug Policy and 50 Years of Lost Knowledge
Date: Thursday, June 24 from 4:30pm–6:00pm ET
RSVP link: bit.ly/50YearsLostResearch
Description: On June 17, 1971, President Nixon declared the war on drugs. Fifty years later, the devastating harms of the war on drugs—ranging from mass criminalization and police violence to soaring rates of overdose —have been well documented. Less well documented are the ways in which the drug war has been a barrier to research and science.