The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) has issued a call for papers for a proposed panel for its upcoming 102nd meeting in Cincinnati, OH between September 27 and October 1, 2017.
The panel has not yet been submitted to ASALH and the organizers are currently collecting abstracts for the submission. Once assembled, the panel will focus on pleasures, injuries, and legal issues associated with substance abuse in African American history. Accepted papers will approach the subject in the context of leisure and vice, medical conversations, public policy and perception, popular culture, and/or the police state since the late 19th century. The panel will not only explore black consumption, sale, and addiction to legal and illegal substances as historical issues, but will also foreground the racially-biased pseudoscientific discourse that has shadowed all debate relating to blackness and substances such as cocaine, alcohol, tobacco and others. Papers on early 20th century questions of black fitness for civilization, therapy and injury, street economies, and the subjects of the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and the popular politics of drug culture are welcomed, among others.
The organizers seek papers from any field with an interest in any subject related to substance use and African American history. Individual presentations will be 15-20 minutes in length with a question and answer period at the end of the panel.
To apply as a panelist, please submit a CV and a short (500 word or less) abstract of the paper you would like to present by April 10 to (dflowe@wustl.edu). Further details about the exact time and date of the panel will be determined after the panel is accepted by ASALH. However, the panel will take place during the time of the conference between Sept 27-Oct 1.
To discuss your submission, or if you have any queries, please contact Dr. Douglas Flowe at dflowe@wustl.edu.