History Department Events Calendar
Uppers and Downers: JOINT Workshop
JOINT is an early career drugs history network, formed in 2022 through the generous support of a networking grant from the Wellcome Trust and Society for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM). Created to provide a forum for early career scholars (broadly defined) to network and share their research, JOINT is delighted to announce the first of two workshops exploring the demarcation of drugs into the binary categories of ‘uppers’ and ‘downers.’
In this first workshop, hosted by the University of Warwick, we invite papers (from any discipline) which problematise and/or complicate any aspect of this demarcation with respect to ‘downers.’ Whilst conventionally associated with substances such as opiates, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines, this umbrella term has also included alcohol, cannabis, and its synthetic derivatives, as well as novel substances such as GHB. We also encourage participants to think about the double-meaning of the word ‘downers’, inviting an exploration of ideas about bad trips, negative drug experiences, and/or drug come-downs. In short, we encourage participants to think broadly and creatively about the historically and contextually contingent nature of the categories which have come to separate various substances, and their experiential effects.