Dear Histarchers,

My colleague and I are looking for a couple more papers to round out our session at the upcoming TAG-US meetings in Chicago (May 9-11). If interested, please send on abstracts (250 words or less) to Rebecca Graff ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) and Megan Edwards ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>) by March 1.

http://tag2013.uchicago.edu/

“Double” Visions:
Archaeological Engagements with Alcohol
Megan Edwards (University of Chicago) and Rebecca S. Graff (University of Chicago)


In Chicago– a city synonymous with bootlegging mobsters and flapper-filled speakeasies– we invite archaeologists to consider the potent potables that have defined so much of the human past, both in their presence and ‘absence’ in the materials we study.  In this vein, we invite participants to consider how the significance of an act of drinking might be tied to the (in)visibility of the setting in which it is produced or consumed.  Does (in)visibility play a part in whether acts surrounding alcohol production and consumption are considered social or anti-social, legal or illegal?   What factors push the production and/or consumption of alcohol to alter in relation to (in)visibility?  How does this material (in)visibility manifest in the records (both archaeological and documentary) that we deal with in our research?  How have considerations of alcohol consumption and production entered into visions of ideal futures and golden pasts from deep antiquity up through the present?  What ambiguities and paradoxes are present in these questions of the (in)visibility of alcohol in the past, present, and future– and what can be revealed in teasing out such “double” visions?
Topics that could be considered in addressing these questions include, but are not limited to:

  *    How the interplay of small-scale domestic and more specialized/industrialized alcohol production relates to the (in)visibility of alcohol production/exchange/ consumption within societies.
  *    How does the psychoactive nature of alcohol influence its (in)visibility within a society?
  *    Is the (in)visibility of alcohol within a society related to this substance’s semiotic ambiguity as simultaneous social lubricant and pharmacological delivery devise?
  *   How do the concerns of states influence the (in)visibility of alcohol as commodity?
  *   How does the ritual nature of alcohol consumption play into its (in)visibility?
  *   How do we approach disjunctures between espoused policies and actual practices in relation to the (in)visibility of alcohol in the archaeological record?
  *   In what ways is vision alone insufficient to understanding the full sensual process of producing, exchanging, and consuming alcohol?
  *   And, finally, is the production of archaeology itself entangled with the consumption alcohol, and if so, what are the possible implications?

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Rebecca S. Graff, PhD
Instructor
Social Sciences Collegiate Division
University of Chicago
5845 S. Ellis Ave.
Chicago, IL 60637
Gates-Blake Hall 228
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Office: 773.834.2358<tel:773.834.2358>