--- Thomas Roberts <P80TBR1 at wpo.cso.niu.edu> wrote:
> The author tells me the deadline of March 1st is
> "elastic", but it's
> probably a good idea to contact him pronto. — TR
> ===================================
>
> call for papers
>
> HIGH SOCIETY
> essays on drugs and contemporary culture
>
>
> By the age of 24, half the population of Britain has
> used illegal drugs
> - The Face 17th June1998
>
> Recent developments in social and cultural
> scholarship have demanded
> attention to issues of difference and diversity, to
> identities "outside
> the normative framework of white, European,
> heterosexual masculinity
> within which academic disciplines tacitly operated"
> (Roseneil and
> Seymour Practising Identities 1999).
>
> Feminist theory, postcolonial theory and queer
> theory have each
> contested prevailing assumptions of normality,
> difference and deviance.
> It is remarkable, given contemporary estimates of
> illicit drug use
> across a wide range of social groups and the clearly
> considerable
> influence of drugs on literary, cultural, artistic,
> musical and academic
> production, that no unified body of critical
> analysis has developed
> which similarly challenges the normative dominance
> of anti-drug
> discourses.
>
> "The true object of propaganda", wrote Leonard
> Schapiro (although in
> reference to Stalin rather than Nixon's War on
> Drugs), "is neither to
> convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a
> uniform pattern of
> public utterance in which the first trace of
> unorthodox thought reveals
> itself as a jarring dissonance".
>
> The ideological dominance of anti-drugs crusaders,
> the continuing
> illegality of much drug use and the discrediting
> stigma of a declared
> interest in the subject have inhibited, with a
> handful of notable
> exceptions, the articulation by academics of "that
> literally outlawed
> voice - the user's ... that forbidden focus, the
> user's point of view"
> (David Lenson On Drugs 1995). The recent relaxation
> of UK law on
> cannabis, perhaps the first step toward its eventual
> legalisation,
> prompts a long-overdue and wide-ranging scholarly
> analysis of the social
> and cultural impact of extensive illegal drug use,
> its evolution in the
> 20th century from subcultural margins to the
> cultural mainstream, and
> its evident contribution to postmodernism.
>
> This edited collection aims to explore the impact of
> illicit drug use on
> the intellectual and cultural landscape of the 20th
> Century and will
> consist of approximately 15 articles of about
> 5-6,000 words each, an
> introductory essay written by the editors, notes on
> contributors and
> index. A contract to publish this edition is
> currently being sought
> from several academic publishers.
>
> The aim of the proposed collection of
> interdisciplinary essays, however,
> is not to reiterate familiar arguments defending or
> challenging the
> right of the State to police the bloodstream of the
> body politic - but
> rather to offer fresh and unorthodox perspectives in
> academic writing on
> drugs, recognising that illicit drug use is a key
> site of political and
> cultural resistance and of choices which structure
> identity, style and
> consciousness.
>
> The elaboration of Queer Theory, in particular,
> since the early 1990's
> offers a model for precluded user perspectives,
> suggesting an approach
> which similarly avoids normative binary presumptions
> about 'users' and
> 'straights', and emphasises experience, subjectivity
> and criticality.
> Indeed, the collection is seen as a starting point
> for the development
> of a theoretical perspective which validates what
> Lenson terms
> "diversity of consciousness".
>
> Accordingly, we invite from scholars working in a
> range of disciplines,
> offers of papers which explore the reflection of
> widespread and
> increasing illegal drug use in, for example,
> contemporary writing,
> music, fashion, software, film and visual arts ; its
> influence on
> contemporary identities, religion, spirituality,
> philosophy and
> psychology ; on social and cultural theory,
> linguistics, politics,
> popular culture and marketing. Papers offering
> comparative, historical
> and anthropological perspectives are also welcomed,
> although the
> emphasis of the volume will be on Europe
> (particularly Britain) and
> North America.
>
> Proposed titles and abstracts of approximately 250
> words should be sent
> to
> Ian Jones mailto:ijones at glos.ac.uk
> ijones at glos.ac.uk
> or Meg Barker
> mailto:mbarker at glos.ac.uk
> mbarker at glos.ac.uk
>
> School of Health and Social Sciences, University of
> Gloucestershire,
> Francis Close Hall Campus, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, U.K.
> - by 1st March
> 2002.
>
> The deadline for receipt of final articles (max.
> 6000 words) is June
> 30th 2002.
>
> ijones at glos.ac.uk
> mbarker at glos.ac.uk
>
===== "The tradition of all the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"
-Karl Marx
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